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Financial services

Interactive Brokers Settles OFAC Sanctions Violations for $11.8 Million

Strategic Insights

— 1 min read

Interactive Brokers, a global electronic broker-dealer, has agreed to pay $11,832,136 to settle apparent violations of multiple Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions programs. The violations occurred over a period of almost eight years, from 2017 to 2024, and involved providing brokerage and investment services to customers in Iran, Cuba, Syria, and the Crimea region of Ukraine, as well as processing trades in securities subject to the Chinese Military-Industrial Complex program and conducting transactions involving blocked persons under various OFAC sanctions programs.

Key Takeaways:

  • Interactive Brokers committed apparent violations by exporting brokerage and investment services to customers located in the Sanctioned Countries, processing 259 customer funds transfers to accounts at blocked Russian Federation banks, and enabling trading in securities of 13 entities involved in military, intelligence, and security research and development programs.
  • The company's internal compliance systems had deficiencies that allowed these apparent violations to occur, including a lack of adequate sanctions alerts and a failure to restrict customers' ability to trade certain securities.
  • Interactive Brokers invested significant resources in identifying and disclosing the apparent violations to OFAC, conducting transactional and data reviews, and implementing remedial measures to fix compliance deficiencies.
  • The company's voluntary self-disclosure and cooperation with OFAC's investigation resulted in a significantly reduced penalty, with the statutory maximum civil monetary penalty applicable in this case being over $5 billion.

Statistics:

  • $11,832,136: The amount of the settlement agreed to by Interactive Brokers.
  • 8 years: The duration of the apparent violations.
  • 259: The number of customer funds transfers processed to accounts at blocked Russian Federation banks.
  • 12,367: The number of apparent violations identified and disclosed to OFAC by Interactive Brokers.
  • 150: The number of electronic exchanges and market centers across which Interactive Brokers operates globally.
  • 0.0001%: The portion of Interactive Brokers' total trading volume represented by the apparent violations.

Sources:

  • "OFAC Sanctions Violations: Interactive Brokers Settles for $11.8 Million" (August 19, 2025), Mondaq Ltd, 2025 - Tel. +44 (0)20 8544 8300 - http://www.mondaq.com

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