The U.S. Treasury is not out to 'get' financial services firms for sanctions failures and instead wants to work with compliance officers to ensure the regime works as effectively as possible, said a senior official. Susan Demske, assistant director for regulatory affairs, encouraged compliance officers and money laundering reporting officers to pick up the phone and call the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers the U.S. sanctions regime. "You are the front line of the sanctions regime, and you are the reason why they are so successful; please pick up and call," she told delegates at the AMLP Forum annual conference in London yesterday. Demske acknowledged that not every firm would agree with her but said OFAC was not deliberately targeting firms that made mistakes, despite the zero tolerance nature of the sanctions regime. "OFAC is reasonable, save there is some who would not agree with that. OFAC's goal is to work with companies. OFAC looks at the totality of
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