[00:00:02] Speaker 04:
Good morning.

[00:00:03] Speaker 01:
I am Thomas Nelson.

[00:00:05] Speaker 01:
I'm an attorney for the appellants here.

[00:00:10] Speaker 01:
I would like to reserve five minutes for rebuttal.

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There are two NGOs that are

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Plaintiff Appellants here.

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They are the Iran Thalassemia Society, which is an organization of approximately 23,000 individuals who are afflicted with the genetic disease of thalassemia.

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Thalassemia is a blood disease that basically causes the body not to be able to produce hemoglobin.

[00:00:44] Speaker 01:
There's an easy fix for that.

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Individuals with thalassemia can get blood transfusions, and that is the common response to the disease.

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But over time, repeated blood transfusions will result in a lot of iron in the body.

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and can lead to iron toxicity.

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And so there are drugs available that can reduce that iron toxicity and allow the individual to survive.

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If the iron toxicity increases too far, the individual will die because of problems in the various organs, the endocrine system, the heart, et cetera.

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There are drugs available that will, again, reduce the iron toxicity.

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Many individuals, particularly in Iran, are not able to use the Iranian drugs, Iranian-produced drugs because of problems of their body won't accept it or there's enormous side effects.

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And the drug that will save those individuals is produced by Novartis, a company in Switzerland.

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And so those drugs are essential to those people that have thalassemia.

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The second disease is epidermiolosis belosa or called EB.

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It's called the butterfly disease because it makes the skin exceedingly fragile and the skin can be broken by just the slightest touch or even just by heat.

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It is a genetic disease, and so the individual is born with it.

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And the children and the toddlers and the babies that have it, they need dressings to take care of that disease.

[00:02:33] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:02:34] Speaker 03:
I think the issue here, I mean, obviously the medical struggles create very sympathetic facts.

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But from a legal standpoint, don't you have a serious standing problem, because there

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are within the regulations and statutes humanitarian carve-outs.

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So can you get right to the legal issue and establish or argue to us how you can overcome the standing problems that the district court pointed out?

[00:03:02] Speaker 01:
Certainly, I'll jump right to that.

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The district court's statement was that the, quoting, plaintiff's injury is not fairly traceable to OFAC's actions, but rather to the speculative fears of the third party banks.

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That is basically the summary of what's involved here.

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And the question arises from that, well, if that's so, what are they afraid of, the third-party banks?

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And I think the answer is manifest, is that they're afraid of the Office of Foreign Assets Control regulatory authority.

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In its decision, the court, yes.

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Is there fear enough?

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Yes, it is enough to provide, to prove indirect causation.

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Yes, the fear of regulatory authority is enough.

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I'll get to that and explain how that works.

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But first I want to criticize the opinion for using a citation to that statement and citing to two cases involving fear.

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And those two cases are Clapper v. Amnesty International

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in Sachs versus Office of Foreign Asset Control, both cases are not causation cases.

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The issue here was

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Did plaintiffs, do plaintiffs have standing to show because of causation?

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It's not injury and fact.

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The two cases of Clapper and Sachs are injury and fact cases.

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They are not causation cases.

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But let's look at causation, setting aside whether the facts directly map onto your situation.

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I'm looking at the allegations in the second amended complaint, and I'm talking specifically now

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about the Iran Thalassemia Society, paragraph 18 through 27, really, of the Second Amendment Complaint, talks about how the

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It seems to me that the scope and complexity of the maximum pressure sanctions, that's motivating the banks not to want to engage in these transactions, but also because fees and commissions from acting as an intermediary bank are minimal.

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So the combination of this is really a complex area here.

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We're not quite sure what the scope of the sanctions is and it's not worth it because the fees are just too low to engage in these transactions.

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So therefore we're not really going to engage.

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So essentially the economic factors play a critical role in the third party banks refusal to engage in these transactions.

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That's kind of the tenor

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of the allegations, and that's why I'm concerned that you don't have enough here to establish causation.

[00:05:58] Speaker 01:
Well, we had enough here to have the banks withdraw completely from the provision of financial services to get these licenses.

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But I think what Judge Winn is saying, if they make a business decision on their own, that this just isn't .

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.

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.

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is it not a business?

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It's too risky.

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They don't get it.

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There's not enough revenue from it.

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It seems to me you have to tie the withdrawal, the court's saying, I mean, what is your strongest factual link tying action or inaction by a foreign banker manufacturer to a specific statement by the OFAC?

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If it's just a business decision, that doesn't get you there.

[00:06:46] Speaker 01:
Your Honor, the point is that prior to the OFAC sanctions, which we as state are illegal, that's in the briefing, prior to that there were no problems that these drugs were coming into Iran and even for the minimal amount that they get.

[00:07:05] Speaker 04:
Okay, but the fact that they're passed and the banks make a business decision that they just don't want to, they don't want to deal with this anymore.

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They feel that it's too risky

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too much exposure for them, how does that get you there?

[00:07:21] Speaker 01:
That gets us there because that business decision was coerced by the sanctions that are illegal.

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But for the sanctions, that business decision would not have been made.

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Instead, they would have continued to provide drugs, the necessary drugs, the life-saving drugs, to Iran.

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They didn't, and over 640 individuals, Thalassemia patients, died.

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That's how it gets us there.

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Let me go to another point, too.

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Did you mention coercion?

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Can you point out to what documents you're relying on to demonstrate coercion?

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What document?

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Yeah, it's in the complaint.

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The statement in the complaint is that when the FERC imposed those sanctions in November of 2018, there was an immediate cessation

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That's an allegation.

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Immediate cessation of delivery of those goods and those medicines.

[00:08:21] Speaker 03:
There's another part of this case that's- That's why it goes to the complaint, the allegations in the complaint, which talks about

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about the concern because of the scope and complexity of the maximum pressure sanctions and because the normal fees are too low, so making it not economically worth it essentially for the banks engaged in these transactions.

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And so it seems like it's driven at least in part by economic concerns.

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You, this is the second amended complaint that we're talking about here, right?

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And there was no opportunity to amend.

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Do you have anything else that you can allege?

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Or are you standing on the second amended complaint's allegations?

[00:09:12] Speaker 01:
I'm gonna, well, there's another part of that, and that's, to do what?

[00:09:15] Speaker 01:
To prove causation, yes.

[00:09:18] Speaker 01:
There's this ER 44 letter in the,

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in the record that basically doesn't talk about that because the banks were not the operating fact.

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In this case, in the case of EB Home, EB Home needs dressings from Sweden.

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And those dressings were no longer delivered once the sanctions came in.

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The question is, were banks involved in that decision?

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The answer is no.

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Banks had nothing to do with that, and that is not discussed in the district court's opinion.

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We didn't sandbag the district court on this.

[00:10:01] Speaker 01:
This is, again, ER 44, and it's mentioned in paragraph 5.

[00:10:05] Speaker 00:
So wait a minute.

[00:10:08] Speaker 00:
Are you saying you could, you're saying amendment would be futile?

[00:10:13] Speaker 00:
Amendment of what?

[00:10:14] Speaker 00:
Your complaint.

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It is not necessary.

[00:10:17] Speaker 00:
I see.

[00:10:17] Speaker 00:
And could you also just focus for a moment on the prior question in terms of what do you contend is the temporal proximity between the release of some of these documents that you're contesting, the 2019 release and some dates, and the decision-making by those whom you contend were influenced?

[00:10:36] Speaker 01:
It was immediate and industry-wide.

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Immediate and industry-wide when President Trump said we are going to

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put back in all the sanctions that were suspended under the JCPOA, and we are going to extend them for the first time ever to humanitarian aid.

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All of the banks that previously under the prior sanctions that had participated in the delivery of medicines withdrew.

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They stopped.

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And not just the banks,

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the suppliers as well, and transportation companies.

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And it was immediate.

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And let me read you this one paragraph from this letter in ER 44.

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This is a letter from Monique Healthcare, which is in Sweden, that provides the essential dressings for children to avoid trauma when their dressings are changed.

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It is a unique dressing and very important.

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And Monique Healthcare said, we will not provide any more dressings to Iran.

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And here's what they said.

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Unfortunately, due to the U.S.

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economic sanctions, third paragraph,

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US economic sanctions in force, Monique Healthcare have decided not to conduct any business in relation to Iran for the time being.

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This also applies to business conducted under any form of exemption to the US economic sanctions.

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We are constantly monitoring the situation and hope to be able to support your need in the near future.

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not mentioned, not discussed in the opinion, clear causation, direct causation.

[00:12:19] Speaker 01:
OFAC sanctions came in, Moliniki went out.

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Immediate.

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They will not sell to Iran.

[00:12:27] Speaker 01:
Okay, and we're gonna address briefly redressability here.

[00:12:31] Speaker 03:
I'm not sure that gets you as far as you wanna go because the letter itself, on the one hand, says, due to U.S.

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sanctions, we're not going to conduct any business, but then it also says, now this includes businesses under any form of exemption, so it seems like they understood that there were exemptions.

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They just decided to withdraw from the market because it's not worth it anymore to deal with

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the sanctions issue to try to figure out what the scope of it is.

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So I think that the letter cuts both ways.

[00:13:04] Speaker 01:
With respect, I don't agree, but that statement about exemptions,

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is an indication that under no circumstances, so long as the sanctions are in place, will they deal with it because they become susceptible to OFAC authority.

[00:13:21] Speaker 01:
And back again to that point, OFAC has plenary authority.

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And that is where the fear is coming from in the banks, and that is where Monique's fear is coming from.

[00:13:31] Speaker 01:
And let's talk a little bit about that.

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What is the scope of OFAC's authority over banks?

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It is plenary.

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The Department of the Treasury has the authority to reject participation by entities that violate U.S.

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sanctions, reject them from the U.S.

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banking system.

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That is a death sentence to a bank.

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And to drive that point home, in 2014, there was such a bank that did that, that evaded U.S.

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sanctions and got caught at it.

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undoubtedly under a statement to that bank that we're going to keep you out of the banking system, that bank, it's BNP Paribas in France, agreed to pay to the US Department of the Treasury $8.9 billion in order to resolve the issue and continue having access to the US markets.

[00:14:35] Speaker 01:
So therefore, the regulatory authority is extremely strong.

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I want to jump ahead to a case decided by the Ninth Circuit just last June, less than a year ago.

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And their question was, how do we determine, this is addressing only thalassemia, because our statement, our standing on this

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The Malnicki issue is that it's a direct causation, so it's not an issue of indirect.

[00:15:01] Speaker 01:
But this court said in indirect causation, it exists if the defendant, which in this case, Olfac, has clear regulatory authority, end quote, over the third party.

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that's involved.

[00:15:22] Speaker 01:
Okay, that's out of Wild Earth, Wild Earth, Guardians versus U.S.

[00:15:27] Speaker 01:
Forest Service, it's 74th, 1212 and just got released.

[00:15:34] Speaker 01:
So there is clear regulatory authority and the existence of that clear regulatory authority itself allows there to be indirect causation.

[00:15:49] Speaker 01:
There's another point here.

[00:15:51] Speaker 04:
You're at four and a half minutes.

[00:15:52] Speaker 04:
If you want to reserve time, you might want to do it now, but that's up to you.

[00:15:57] Speaker 01:
Okay, Your Honor.

[00:15:58] Speaker 01:
I want to say briefly that there's one other point, and that's that the OFAC put out a release in 2019 saying to the banks, we understand you are no longer providing

[00:16:11] Speaker 01:
medicines.

[00:16:12] Speaker 01:
We will agree that we will not impose sanctions on you.

[00:16:16] Speaker 01:
We will give you a safe harbor from our sanctions if you do the following in the list of things, including monthly reports to the Treasury, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:16:27] Speaker 01:
The point of that is why would they do that if the cause of the bank's exiting was not OFAC's authority?

[00:16:37] Speaker 01:
They will offer to not impose sanctions if,

[00:16:41] Speaker 01:
if the banks will agree to these conditions.

[00:16:46] Speaker 01:
Well, that's not what the law says.

[00:16:48] Speaker 01:
The law says, Mr. President, may not impose economic sanctions on humanitarian aid to Iran, period.

[00:16:57] Speaker 01:
Okay, I will reserve the rest of my time for rebuttal.

[00:17:00] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:17:15] Speaker 04:
Good morning.

[00:17:16] Speaker 02:
Good morning, Your Honors.

[00:17:17] Speaker 02:
May it please the Court, I'm Josh Koppel for the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

[00:17:21] Speaker 02:
Plaintiffs' theory of standing is that Iranians can't access medicine and medical devices because OFAC has imposed or threatened to impose sanctions on the transactions of humanitarian goods.

[00:17:33] Speaker 02:
But plaintiffs can't identify a single regulation that prohibits companies from engaging in such humanitarian transactions, nor can they identify a single instance

[00:17:45] Speaker 02:
in which a company or bank engaged in a transaction or wanted to engage in a transaction and ELFAC imposed or threatened to impose sanctions.

[00:17:53] Speaker 04:
So why don't we get right to the chase?

[00:17:55] Speaker 04:
I think that your friend on the other side pointed to a letter that was from the Swedish manufacturer, and I think Judge Wynn said, well, there's a couple of ways that you could look at that.

[00:18:09] Speaker 04:
I guess, I think the way he's asking, hypothetically, if plaintiffs had a letter from a foreign manufacturer or a bank that stated, in essence, that but for OFACS FAQ 630 or FAQ 637, it would provide medicine or facilitate the provision of medicine to Iran, would plaintiffs have standing done?

[00:18:31] Speaker 02:
I think that would be a closer case, but it's telling the plaintiffs don't have a letter like that, and that the letter that they do have simply recognizes that there are exemptions permitting, there are exemptions to the economic sanctions, but stating that nevertheless, Monica Healthcare will not engage in the humanitarian transactions.

[00:18:52] Speaker 02:
I want to clarify.

[00:18:54] Speaker 04:
Well, I agree that that letter doesn't say that, but if they had a letter that said that, would that be enough, or is it never going to be enough?

[00:19:02] Speaker 02:
I think that would be a closer case, but it is important to understand what FAQ's 630 and 637 are talking about.

[00:19:09] Speaker 02:
First of all, there are broad exemptions for humanitarian transactions.

[00:19:14] Speaker 02:
There is a narrow prohibition, which is that

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Companies, banks cannot engage in humanitarian transactions that involve an entity that has been designated in connection with Iran's support for international terrorism or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

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And that's a relatively narrow prohibition, and plaintiffs have not been able to tie that prohibition.

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have not shown that that narrow prohibition caused their injury, nor that an injunction would redress their alleged injury.

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And that's because health care companies and other organizations are already authorized to provide humanitarian aid to Iran using non-Iranian banks or using Iranian banks that have not been designated in connection with support for terrorism or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

[00:20:05] Speaker 02:
And it's simply not plausible to think

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that companies aren't engaging in permitted humanitarian transactions because they can't work through particular banks that have been designated as essentially the worst of the worst, or that they would start engaging in those transactions if they were permitted to.

[00:20:22] Speaker 03:
So what is the government's view?

[00:20:26] Speaker 03:
there's just not enough economic incentive for banks to do that.

[00:20:31] Speaker 03:
I found the UN Special Rapporteur Report really interesting because it seems like the problems are real, right?

[00:20:37] Speaker 03:
There is a, on the books, the humanitarian carve-out, but due to the complexity of the system, people have been

[00:20:46] Speaker 03:
discouraged or deterred from really engaging in these transactions.

[00:20:52] Speaker 03:
It just doesn't seem like it's really worth it for them to do that, whether it's due to economic disincentives or otherwise.

[00:21:00] Speaker 03:
So what the plaintiff is asking for, and I think they do have a serious standing problem.

[00:21:05] Speaker 03:
That's my view.

[00:21:06] Speaker 03:
We haven't conferenced the case.

[00:21:07] Speaker 03:
But it seems to me that if they're asking for injunctive relief, clarification from OFAC to say, look, this is the scope of the sanctions.

[00:21:16] Speaker 03:
I don't see a downside for the government to do that.

[00:21:18] Speaker 03:
Informally speaking, there's got to be, I don't know to what extent there's been a dialogue outside of a lawsuit or not.

[00:21:26] Speaker 03:
But it seems like there's really no downside for the government to clarify, maybe not to the exact extent of the injunctive relief that they're seeking, but certainly to make this a less complex regime.

[00:21:40] Speaker 03:
What are your thoughts on that?

[00:21:41] Speaker 02:
I think that OFAC has clarified this.

[00:21:44] Speaker 02:
And if you look at the current FAQs, 823 for example, 844.

[00:21:48] Speaker 02:
These FAQs say that U.S.

[00:21:50] Speaker 02:
persons and non-U.S.

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persons do not risk exposure under the U.S.

[00:21:55] Speaker 02:
sanctions for engaging in humanitarian transactions, so long as those transactions don't involve entities that have been designated in connection with support for terrorism or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

[00:22:07] Speaker 02:
So OFAC has clarified that.

[00:22:09] Speaker 04:
OFAC also then... But it doesn't happen overnight, because we've all seen cases where

[00:22:14] Speaker 04:
humanitarian groups then do get designated as giving material aid to terrorism or something like that, but it doesn't happen overnight.

[00:22:24] Speaker 04:
So what if the fact that banks and organizations are afraid that it could happen, they don't know that, but it could happen, so they just want to wash their hands of it, does that

[00:22:38] Speaker 04:
show, is that any evidence for someone to get standing here?

[00:22:42] Speaker 02:
No, that doesn't support standing.

[00:22:44] Speaker 02:
It might be helpful to also think about in terms of redressability.

[00:22:49] Speaker 02:
What could plaintiffs obtain, even if they had standing and even if they showed

[00:22:55] Speaker 02:
have to show some kind of violation but what what they're asking for is essentially a declaration of what the law already is which is the companies can engage in humanitarian transactions so long as they don't engage with entities that have been designated connection with support for terrorism that's not going to provide any additional clarity it may be and it is the case that certain well first of all

[00:23:16] Speaker 02:
There are humanitarian transactions with Iran.

[00:23:19] Speaker 02:
Maybe not as many as plaintiffs want.

[00:23:22] Speaker 02:
Maybe not for these particular medicines.

[00:23:25] Speaker 02:
There is humanitarian aid going to Iran.

[00:23:27] Speaker 02:
I'll say that.

[00:23:31] Speaker 02:
But it may be that there are companies that have said it's not worth the reputational risks.

[00:23:36] Speaker 02:
Iran is now, again, it's essentially a pariah state.

[00:23:40] Speaker 02:
It has demonstrated that it supports international terrorists.

[00:23:44] Speaker 02:
And there are companies that say it's not worth the reputational risk, it's not worth compliance costs, because there's no way that we can get out of the general non-humanitarian sanctions.

[00:23:55] Speaker 02:
There's no challenge to those.

[00:23:57] Speaker 02:
So companies will certainly have to have some kind of compliance mechanism to ensure that they stay within the humanitarian exemptions.

[00:24:03] Speaker 02:
And there may be companies and banks that say it's not worth it.

[00:24:06] Speaker 02:
That decision is not caused by the alleged action of OFAC here.

[00:24:13] Speaker 02:
And so that's why plaintiffs don't have standing.

[00:24:15] Speaker 00:
Some of the things that you've been discussing are based on your information.

[00:24:21] Speaker 00:
Is this an issue that should be determined after some discovery?

[00:24:25] Speaker 00:
Should it be determined on other than a motion to dismiss?

[00:24:29] Speaker 02:
No, plaintiffs have not alleged

[00:24:31] Speaker 02:
There are no factual allegations in the complaint that tie any conduct of OFAC to the alleged injury.

[00:24:43] Speaker 02:
So plaintiffs have not identified, again, a single regulation.

[00:24:45] Speaker 04:
I think they're trying to say circumstantial evidence of ... They come out, OFAC speaks, and then they're cut off.

[00:24:55] Speaker 04:
So it's a little bit like, I would say, like an employment law.

[00:24:59] Speaker 04:
You file a complaint, and the next thing you know, you get transferred.

[00:25:04] Speaker 04:
So yes, the employer doesn't say, I transferred you because you filed a complaint.

[00:25:10] Speaker 04:
But they're allowed to argue that there's a temporal relationship when things happen.

[00:25:16] Speaker 04:
And I heard the appellant's lawyer saying, well, it was this way.

[00:25:24] Speaker 04:
If that comes out, then it's this way.

[00:25:28] Speaker 04:
So that should be enough.

[00:25:29] Speaker 04:
What's your response?

[00:25:31] Speaker 02:
Yeah, what happened that they say, and the complaint says this, is that prior to the maximum pressure sanctions, there were humanitarian transactions.

[00:25:39] Speaker 02:
After the maximum pressure sanctions, there were not.

[00:25:41] Speaker 02:
The problem is that plaintiffs aren't challenging the maximum pressure sanctions writ large.

[00:25:46] Speaker 02:
And so it's true that the imposition of economic sanctions after the withdrawal from the JCPOA did diminish economic activity, economic transactions with Iran.

[00:25:59] Speaker 02:
But that's not what plaintiffs are challenging.

[00:26:02] Speaker 02:
And so that's not enough to establish that the challenge conduct

[00:26:06] Speaker 02:
is a cause of plaintiff's injury.

[00:26:09] Speaker 02:
It's notable that the withdrawal from the imposition of maximum pressure sanctions occurred in May 2018.

[00:26:15] Speaker 02:
The FAQs that they cite, 630 and 637, those weren't issued until about six months later.

[00:26:21] Speaker 02:
The financial channels document that they say is relevant wasn't issued until the following year.

[00:26:27] Speaker 02:
So they make these temporal arguments, but in fact,

[00:26:32] Speaker 02:
Those actually preceded the specific documents that now they rely on to argue that what caused their injury is actually some kind of threat about humanitarian transactions specifically.

[00:26:45] Speaker 02:
And again, there was no threat.

[00:26:47] Speaker 02:
They haven't identified such a threat.

[00:26:49] Speaker 02:
But their temporal allegations don't back up their conclusions either.

[00:26:59] Speaker 02:
I also want to make note that

[00:27:02] Speaker 02:
This narrow prohibition that's in FAQ 630 and 637 about working with entities that have been designated in connection with support for terrorism, banks and companies can't avoid any uncertainty because they can look at OFAC's list of specially designated nationals.

[00:27:20] Speaker 02:
And on that list, we explain this on page 35, footnote three of our brief.

[00:27:26] Speaker 02:
There's a list of entities that have been designated, and there are program tags.

[00:27:31] Speaker 02:
companies can identify which entities have been designated in connection with support for terrorism.

[00:27:35] Speaker 02:
If you look at Iranian banks, there are approximately 45 to 50 banks, Iranian banks, that have not been designated in connection with support for terrorism or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

[00:27:49] Speaker 02:
And so if Munleka Healthcare wanted to engage in humanitarian transactions with those Iranian banks, or of course with non-Iranian banks, they could do that.

[00:28:00] Speaker 02:
any allegation that Monica Healthcare is not engaging in those transactions because of something OFAC doing just doesn't rise to a level of plausibility, nor can the court conclude that if an injunction were to issue allowing Monica Healthcare to also work with perhaps some other banks that have been designated in connection with support for terrorism, that that would cause Monica Healthcare to actually engage in those transactions.

[00:28:27] Speaker 04:
Is there any difference in the analysis of the Thalassemia Society and then there's the other disease that's the Swedish group?

[00:28:41] Speaker 04:
Is there any difference in the analysis of the two?

[00:28:43] Speaker 04:
Do you see a difference in strength of their nexus?

[00:28:48] Speaker 02:
No.

[00:28:49] Speaker 02:
Plaintiffs have said that in some cases, it's the healthcare companies itself, Monellicka Healthcare, that has expressed a desire, a reluctance to do business with Iran, and in some cases, it's the intermediary banks.

[00:29:01] Speaker 02:
But in either event, those decisions are not traceable to OFAC.

[00:29:06] Speaker 02:
There are no allegations tracing those decisions to OFAC.

[00:29:09] Speaker 02:
And so the analysis, the standing analysis is the same.

[00:29:17] Speaker 02:
I'm happy to answer any other questions the court might have.

[00:29:20] Speaker 02:
Otherwise, we ask that this court affirm the judgment below.

[00:29:25] Speaker 04:
All right.

[00:29:25] Speaker 04:
Thank you for your argument.

[00:29:26] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:29:27] Speaker 02:
Thank you, Mr. Koppel.

[00:29:31] Speaker 01:
Once again, may it please the court.

[00:29:37] Speaker 01:
The defendants are asking for facts.

[00:29:40] Speaker 01:
Will they do this?

[00:29:43] Speaker 01:
This is a motion to dismiss.

[00:29:46] Speaker 01:
the facts are expected to be an emotion for summary judgment, we produce facts.

[00:29:54] Speaker 01:
I think on that understanding of what's going on here, that should be sufficient to get past this at any event.

[00:30:01] Speaker 01:
Again, people were not dying before sanctions were imposed on humanitarian aid to Iran.

[00:30:10] Speaker 01:
People were staying alive because they were getting the things they needed, and it was that one factor

[00:30:16] Speaker 01:
that Congress said three times, don't put sanctions on humanitarian aid, and in two of those occasions, on Iran.

[00:30:28] Speaker 01:
Okay?

[00:30:29] Speaker 01:
That was part of the National Defense Authorization Acts of 2011 and 2013.

[00:30:32] Speaker 01:
The prior one was the statute that basically talked about trade and trade sanctions.

[00:30:41] Speaker 01:
And it's in the briefing.

[00:30:46] Speaker 01:
He says banks are the worst of the worst.

[00:30:48] Speaker 01:
I would contest that as a factual matter because actually there's a lot of small banks in Iran.

[00:30:55] Speaker 01:
Actually the major banks of Iran that do the international transactions and not, I don't know, community savings things, that sort of thing.

[00:31:04] Speaker 01:
They're the ones that are really worried about this.

[00:31:08] Speaker 01:
The statutes that I mentioned do not authorize conditioning exemptions to putting sanctions on humanitarian aid to Iran.

[00:31:18] Speaker 01:
It's that simple.

[00:31:19] Speaker 01:
What happened here broke the law, clearly.

[00:31:25] Speaker 01:
So whether it's a direct causation, as in the case of Monique, or indirect causation, in both cases it's clear that

[00:31:35] Speaker 01:
There was something that OFAC did that caused this to happen.

[00:31:44] Speaker 01:
That's about all I have.

[00:31:46] Speaker 01:
I just want to make this point that many, many people have died, 640 last count of thalassemia patients.

[00:31:52] Speaker 01:
Children today, it's continuing because the sanctions are in place, notwithstanding president.

[00:31:57] Speaker 04:
Well, we're never unsympathetic to that, of course.

[00:32:00] Speaker 04:
I think that all the people that I work with, I know we certainly are sympathetic people to that.

[00:32:08] Speaker 04:
But we do have to make legal analysis, too, that sometimes not everything fits into the

[00:32:14] Speaker 04:
the easiest boxes.

[00:32:16] Speaker 04:
So I certainly, I know that my colleagues, everyone certainly never wants any children or anyone to die.

[00:32:25] Speaker 01:
Understood.

[00:32:25] Speaker 01:
And I appreciate that.

[00:32:26] Speaker 01:
But let me point out that the defendants said that Iran's a pariah state.

[00:32:32] Speaker 01:
That stain is affecting people that are completely innocent, that have done nothing, many of them children.

[00:32:40] Speaker 01:
And they're taking it a step further.

[00:32:43] Speaker 01:
They're from tribal areas.

[00:32:44] Speaker 01:
How do I know that?

[00:32:45] Speaker 01:
Because it's a genetic disease.

[00:32:47] Speaker 01:
And genetic diseases normally happen in tribal areas because of intermarriage.

[00:32:51] Speaker 01:
In any event, I appreciate your time and attention.

[00:32:55] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:32:55] Speaker 01:
All right.

[00:32:55] Speaker 04:
Thank you both for your argument.

[00:32:57] Speaker 04:
This matter will stand submitted.

[00:32:58] Speaker 04:
Thank you, Mr. Nelson.

[00:32:59] Speaker 04:
The court will be in recess till tomorrow at 9 AM.