A trading house with operations across the United States and the United Kingdom receives two letters on the same morning. One is from the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. The other is from the UK's Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation. Both say the same thing in different words: the business, or its controlling shareholder, has been designated. The phones stop. Correspondent banks suspend accounts. Counterparties invoke force majeure clauses. What happens next – and, critically, how long it takes – depends entirely on which petition route you follow and whether you have followed both simultaneously.
Delisting petitions under OFAC and OFSI differ in their legal basis, procedural timelines, evidentiary standards, and the degree of judicial oversight available to a petitioner. OFAC operates an administrative reconsideration process under IEEPA and its programme-specific regulations; OFSI operates under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act, with a statutory review pathway and a route to judicial challenge in the High Court. Neither regime guarantees a defined response time, and in our cross-border practice the outcomes diverge frequently enough that a parallel strategy – running both petitions on coordinated timelines – is almost always the right approach.
This analysis sets out the procedural architecture of each regime, maps the points of genuine divergence, identifies the evidentiary demands that trip up petitioners, and closes with the practical decision framework a cross-border business or individual should apply before filing anything.
What is the legal basis for a delisting petition under each regime?
OFAC's authority to designate – and to remove – persons from the SDN List (OFAC's list of Specially Designated Nationals and blocked persons) derives from IEEPA and the programme-specific executive orders and regulations that implement it. A petitioner asks OFAC to exercise its administrative discretion to revoke or modify the designation. There is no independent administrative tribunal. The decision sits with OFAC, subject to interagency consultation for certain programmes, and there is no statutory deadline by which OFAC must respond to a petition.
OFSI's authority derives from SAMLA – the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act – and the thematic regulations made under it. A designated person may request a review of their designation by the Secretary of State. If that review does not produce a satisfactory outcome, a further route exists to the High Court by way of judicial review or, in some circumstances, a statutory appeal. The existence of a domestic court route distinguishes the UK position structurally from the pure administrative model that operates in Washington.
Why does this distinction matter to a practitioner? Because it shapes the entire evidentiary and strategic architecture. In the OFAC process you are persuading an administrative body to exercise discretion in your favour. In the UK process you may ultimately be challenging whether a decision was lawfully made – a different question, with different standards of scrutiny applied at each stage.
How does the OFAC administrative reconsideration process work?
An OFAC reconsideration petition is a formal written submission to OFAC's Office of Global Targeting, requesting that OFAC revoke, modify, or narrow the designation. The petition must do three things well: demonstrate that the factual basis for the designation is incorrect or no longer current; show that the petitioner does not meet the legal standard for designation under the applicable programme; and present any new or additional information that OFAC did not have at the time of listing.
In our experience, petitions that fail do so not because the law is wrong but because the evidentiary package is insufficient. OFAC will consider all information submitted. It will not, however, conduct an independent investigation on the petitioner's behalf. The burden of demonstrating a changed or incorrect factual predicate lies entirely with the petitioner. That means the package must address every stated basis for the designation, not merely the most convenient ones.
OFAC may respond by delisting, by maintaining the designation with a written explanation, or – most commonly in complex matters – by issuing a tolling letter that extends the review period. There is no fixed statutory window for a response. In practice, timelines extend from several months to years depending on programme complexity, interagency equities, and the completeness of the initial submission. A petitioner who submits an incomplete first petition and then supplements it piecemeal extends the timeline significantly. File complete or file later: that is the working rule.
The position above covers the standard administrative case. Your facts – the programme, the sanctions nexus, the ownership chain, and the designating basis – change the analysis substantially. For an assessment of your OFAC exposure, contact Calder & Vance at info@caldervance.com.
How does the OFSI review and challenge process work?
Under SAMLA, a designated person may request that the Secretary of State review the designation. The review can be triggered on the basis that the designation is incorrect in fact, that the criteria for designation are not met, or that circumstances have materially changed since listing. OFSI administers the financial-sanctions regime operationally, but the designation decision and any review sit with the relevant minister.
The UK process has a layered structure that OFAC's does not. First, the ministerial review. If that does not result in delisting, the designated person may pursue a challenge in the High Court. The ground for judicial review is that the designation decision was unlawful – whether for procedural unfairness, irrationality, or a failure to meet the statutory criteria. The existence of that court route creates a genuine check on the executive's decision-making that has no direct counterpart in the US administrative process.
One structural feature of the UK regime deserves particular attention. OFSI publishes its enforcement guidance and its licensing policy. That transparency gives practitioners a clearer view of the agency's reasoning process than OFAC typically affords. On the other hand, the UK system is newer and the body of decided cases is smaller, which means that practitioners working on a High Court challenge face a less settled body of precedent to draw on than they might before the EU General Court.
We regularly advise designated persons who face concurrent UK and US designations. The two petitions are not procedurally connected: a delisting in Washington does not automatically produce a UK delisting, and vice versa. Where the factual bases for the two designations differ, the arguments and the evidence must be tailored separately for each authority.
Where do the regimes diverge on evidentiary standards?
OFAC applies a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard when designating, and a petitioner challenging a designation must overcome that standard by demonstrating that the factual predicate is incorrect or no longer satisfies the programme criteria. OFSI and the UK courts apply a somewhat different lens: the question in judicial review is whether the decision-maker acted within the bounds of lawful authority and whether the evidence before it at the time was sufficient to meet the statutory threshold.
In practice, the evidentiary divergence shows up in three areas. First, the specificity of the designation notice. OFAC notices are often sparse; they name a basis but not always the underlying intelligence. UK designation notices tend to be more legally structured, which gives a petitioner more to engage with – but also more to rebut. Second, the use of classified or sensitive material. Both regimes may rely on information that cannot be disclosed to the petitioner in full. OFAC uses a "summary of information" procedure; the UK courts have developed procedures for managing sensitive material in litigation. Third, the treatment of changed circumstances. OFAC responds well to evidence that the factual predicate has changed – a business sold, a relationship severed, a link broken. OFSI and the UK courts engage with both factual change and legal adequacy.
Cross-border businesses frequently ask whether a successful delisting in one jurisdiction strengthens the petition in the other. The honest answer is: sometimes, but not automatically. If the factual bases are shared – the same transaction, the same ownership relationship – then a finding in one forum that the predicate was incorrect is powerful supporting material in the other. But if the designations rest on programme-specific criteria that differ between regimes, the overlap is smaller than clients typically assume.
What are the main risk flags for a cross-border petitioner?
The most common risk is filing too early with too little. A petition that arrives at OFAC or OFSI before the evidence package is complete gives the authority an opportunity to deny on the existing record and reset the timeline. In a matter where the petitioner's business is suspended and accounts are frozen, the pressure to act immediately is enormous – but a premature filing can extend the total review period rather than shorten it.
A second risk is treating the two petitions as a single document. Because OFAC and OFSI operate under different legal instruments, the framing of a petition must match the statutory language of each regime. An OFAC petition that argues "the UK designation was wrong" will not advance the US case. The argument must be framed in IEEPA terms, addressing the applicable programme criteria. The reverse applies equally.
Third: the ownership and control question (the UK and EU test for whether a non-listed entity is caught through a listed person) can affect whether a related entity is also blocked or frozen, and a petition for the individual may not automatically unfreeze assets held through an associated structure. Before filing, map the full legal and beneficial ownership structure and identify every asset that is affected – not just the most visible ones.
If a transaction has already been refused or assets have been frozen for an extended period, early legal review preserves options that narrow over time. To discuss a delisting matter in confidence, contact Calder & Vance at info@caldervance.com.
How does the EU General Court route compare with OFAC and OFSI?
The cross-border dimension of designation challenges cannot ignore the EU, which operates a third distinct route: the annulment action before the EU General Court. Unlike both the OFAC administrative process and the UK ministerial review, the EU route is a direct legal action challenging the Council's act of designation. The standard applied is legality review: the Court examines whether the Council's reasoning was adequate, whether the evidence was sufficient, and whether fundamental rights were respected.
The EU General Court has in a meaningful number of cases annulled designations on the basis that the Council's reasoning was insufficient or that the factual basis was not adequately supported by the materials before the Court. That track record – built up over more than a decade of challenges – gives EU annulment proceedings a more developed body of precedent than either the OFAC administrative process or the UK High Court route at this stage.
For a business or individual designated under all three regimes – OFAC, OFSI, and the EU Council – the strategic question is sequencing. Which forum moves first? Which finding, if favourable, carries the most weight in the others? There is no single answer. In our practice, we assess the quality of the factual predicate in each regime, the speed of each process, and the cost of running all three simultaneously against the cost of a phased approach. That assessment drives the sequencing recommendation, not a default rule.
For additional analysis on the OFSI process compared with the EU route, see our companion piece: Delisting petitions: OFSI vs EU General Court compared.
A common myth: the same petition works across regimes
Many cross-border businesses assume that a single, well-drafted delisting petition can be filed across OFAC, OFSI, and the EU with minor adjustments. That assumption is incorrect, and acting on it reliably damages petitions that might otherwise succeed.
Each regime has a distinct legal test for designation. OFAC operates under programme-specific criteria set by executive order and IEEPA regulations. OFSI operates under SAMLA and the thematic regulations. The EU Council applies criteria set out in the relevant Council Decision and Regulation. An argument that defeats one regime's criteria may be irrelevant or even counterproductive in another. The ownership-and-control analysis differs between OFAC's mechanical 50-percent ownership rule and the UK and EU tests that also capture control exercised through less-than-majority stakes. A petition drafted around OFAC's bright-line threshold will miss the control question entirely in OFSI and EU proceedings.
In our experience, the most effective cross-regime delisting strategy begins with a comparative analysis of the designating basis in each regime before a single word of the petition is drafted. That analysis identifies the common factual ground, the regime-specific arguments, and the sequencing logic. Skipping it to save time at the outset typically costs more time – and more money – in the middle of the process.
Related practices
- Delisting evidence packages – Australia – building the evidentiary file for Australian autonomous-sanctions designation challenges.
- OFAC vs OFSI delisting petitions – further analysis – extended practitioner commentary on parallel designation challenges.
- OFSI vs EU General Court: delisting compared – comparing the UK ministerial review and High Court route with EU annulment proceedings.