Former Russian Bank Board Member Sues State, Treasury for Continued Sanctions Listing
Paul Goldfinch, a sanctioned former board member at Russian financial institution Bank Otkritie, filed suit on July 17 at the District Court for the District of Columbia over the government's failure to render a decision on his delisting petition. The banker, listing the State and Treasury Departments as defendants, said he resigned after Bank Otkritie was listed in February 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but the government has stalled on finding that he has satisfied its delisting requirements (Paul Goldfinch v. Antony J. Blinken, D.D.C. # 23-02045).
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Two weeks after resigning from the bank, Goldfinch said, he was still sanctioned and that the U.S.'s only reason for sanctioning him was that he was a board member at Bank Otkritie. "It is clear that Defendants' fact-finding procedures failed to discover that [Goldfinch] was no longer a board member at Bank Otkritie, and this failure resulted in the wrongful imposition of sanctions on [Goldfinch]," the complaint said. The banker said he acted in good faith to seek his removal from the Specially Designated Nationals List, yet for over a year the Office of Foreign Assets Control refused to make a decision on his petition.
The banker said the U.S. "resorted to issuing a series of questionnaires to [Goldfinch] that seeks information without any relevance to his delisting matter," including questions about his family, "accusatory questions regarding" his decision 10 years prior to seek employment at a major global financial institution in Russia and "fishing expeditions" on whether he receives income from any Russia-related entities. "Just as egregiously, Defendants the State Department and its Office of Sanctions Policy and Implementation have engaged in this bad-faith conduct without apparent legal authority," the complaint said.
Goldfinch added that other people who were sanctioned for being board members of Bank Otkritie were dropped from the SDN List. He said the consequences of his designation "have been personally ruinous."
The banker filed a three-count complaint at the D.C. court, arguing that the failure to make a decision on the delisting petition amounts to an unreasonable delay in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, the designation of Goldfinch "constitutes arbitrary and capricious agency action" under the APA, and that the "adjudication" of the delisting petition also violates the APA.
Goldfinch's suit came after another former board member of Bank Otkritie asked a federal court to order the U.S. to remove her from the SDN List, saying there is “no factual basis” that supports her listing (see 2306300063).