Syria

04 Mar 1976

Damascus, Syria

Wassim Anwar Al-Qattan is a Syrian businessman who holds several contracts with the Government of Syria to develop government-owned shopping malls and hotel properties in Damascus. Al-Qattan is reportedly tied to powerful regime figures, and the Syrian government has awarded almost all of the recent major real estate projects outside of Marota City in Damascus to him. Al-Qattan’s name first emerged within the Damascus business community in July 2017, when his company Muruj Cham Investment and Tourism Group won an auction to re-invest in Qasioun Mall. The project’s previous investor was reportedly stripped of its contract with the Syrian government after Al-Qattan offered a higher annual fee of 1.2 billion Syrian pounds ($2.7 million), paid to the Syrian government. Additionally, Muruj Cham Investment and Tourism Group signed a contract with the Syrian Ministry of Tourism in June 2018 to invest in the Al-Jalaa Hotel in Damascus, paying the government 2.25 billion Syrian pounds ($5 million) a year for 25 years. Al Qattan also owns 50 percent of Adam Trading and Investment LLC, which acquired a contract from the Damascus governorate in August 2018 to develop and manage the Massa Plaza Mall in Damascus. In January 2019, Al-Qattan’s company Intersection LLC acquired a 48-year contract to invest in the Syrian Ministry of Awqaf (Religious Endowments)-owned Yalbagha Complex in central Damascus and convert the property into a tourist commercial complex. Wassim Anwar Al-Qattan and his companies Muruj Cham Investment and Tourism Group, Adam Trading and Investment LLC, and Intersection LLC are being designated pursuant to E.O.13582 for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods and services in support of, the Government of Syria.

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1072

2020-07-29

US

Sections 7404-7438 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, Title LXXIV—Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019

OFAC country specific

Syria

Blocking Property, Suspending Entry, Trade sanctions

• https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/topic/1571 Pursuant to the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019, non-U.S. persons who knowingly provide significant financial, material, or technological support to, or knowingly engage in a significant transaction with the Government of Syria, including the CBoS, or certain other persons sanctioned with respect to Syria, risk exposure to sanctions.

It is the policy of the United States that diplomatic and coercive economic means should be utilized to compel the government of Bashar al-Assad to halt its murderous attacks on the Syrian people and to support a transition to a government in Syria that respects the rule of law, human rights, and peaceful co-existence with its neighbors.

SDN