Despite conflict, U.S. does business with Iran

The factory in Macon closed after B.A.T.’s Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings merged their U.S. tobacco and cigarette businesses. B.A.T. said it now makes cigarettes for export to Iran in Turkey. It declined to say how much tobacco the company previously shipped from the U.S. to Iran, but said the U.S. government approved the shipments.

The Bush administration’s record enforcing export laws is mixed. The Office of Foreign Assets Control let the statute of limitations expire in at least 25 cases involving trade with Iran from 2002 to 2005, according to one internal department audit. The companies involved, disclosed to the AP under the Freedom of Information Act, include Acterna Corp., American Export Lines, Parvizian Masterpieces, Protrade International Corp., Rex of New York, Shinhan Bank, Phoenix Biomedical Corp., World Cargo Alliance and World Fuel Services.

Abdi Parvizian of the Parvizian Masterpieces rug gallery in Chevy Chase, Md., said his case was dropped because his business proved everything was imported from Iran legally. He bristled over current congressional proposals to ban imports from Iran, including carpets.

“The problem with the rugs is it has nothing to do with the government of Iran,” Parvizian said. “This is something that is made by the very unfortunate people in the country, and those people are going to get hurt more than anybody else.”

World Fuel Services said an employee fueled a ship out of Singapore that turned out to be Iranian-owned, and the U.S. government spotted it from a wire transfer. The company explained the mistake to Treasury with no repercussions, said Kevin Welber, general counsel of the company’s marine business. It has since put in place techniques to identify Iranian-owned ships, which Welber said can be difficult because some Iranian ships sail under Cyprus flags.

Phoenix Biomedical acknowledged it shipped surgical shunts to Iran without a license. It previously was allowed during the Clinton administration to send them to Iran and sent replacement shunts without a new license, which was required, said Charles Hokanson, who sold Phoenix Biomedical to French-based Vygon and is now chief executive of Vygon USA. He said that was the last business it did with Iran.

The other companies did not respond to requests by the AP for explanations.

Failure to obtain export licenses has caused trouble for some companies whose products can legally be sold to Iran.

Months after Zimmer Dental of Carlsbad, Calif., acquired Centerpulse Dental in late 2003, it learned Centerpulse had sold dental implants and related items to Iran without necessary export licenses, Zimmer spokesman Brad Bishop said. It voluntarily reported the violations to the Treasury Department, which announced in January that Zimmer Dental had paid an $82,850 penalty.

Bishop said the company has since trained employees and also took the easiest solution to avoid such problems:

It stopped doing any business with Iran.

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