Dive into the latest Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) enforcement action, where Florida-based brokerage firm TradeStation Securities, Inc. agreed to a $1,110,661 settlement for 481 apparent sanctions violations. Discover how a series of seemingly minor technical glitches and human errors allowed users in comprehensively sanctioned jurisdictions—including Iran, Syria, and the Crimea region of Ukraine—to execute securities trades worth over $4.4 million on TradeStation's mobile platform.In this episode, we unpack the sanctions compliance control failures that led to this penalty. We break down how a routine software update left a first-tier firewall disabled for nearly a year, how a flawed second-tier IP address verification tool misidentified server locations, and why the firm's compliance team failed to notice when their daily OFAC alert subscription expired for over eight months.Tune in to learn crucial lessons on the importance of regular testing and auditing for compliance systems, the mitigating power of voluntary self-disclosure, and how modern broker-dealers can protect their trading platforms from similar technological vulnerabilitiesSource OFAC: https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/935351/download?inline

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