How the U.S. Financial Blacklist Shapes Foreign Policy

Posted: July 13th, 2017

By Adam Smith

Adam Smith recently joined Gibson Dunn's Washington, D.C. office after five years in the Obama Administration at the White House and Treasury working as a senior sanctions official. He spearheaded the Administration's efforts to implement Congressionally-mandated secondary sanctions on Iran, developed sanctions relief strategies in the context of the Iran nuclear agreement, authored industry guidance and advisories, and negotiated parallel sanctions measures put in place by the European Union and other states including Switzerland, Japan, Australia, and Canada.

The U.S. government imposes sanctions on individuals, companies, and nations for a variety of reasons, but the practical consequences are always the same: U.S. sanctions make doing business as usual a lot harder. The Cipher Brief’s Bennett Seftel sat down with Adam Smith, partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, to discuss the American sanctions process and how individuals, businesses and nations can get off the sanctions list.

The Cipher Brief: How are individuals and companies sanctioned in the U.S.?

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Subscriber+