Hal Eren is the founding and managing partner of the Eren Law Firm and leads the Firm’s highly respected corporate and economic sanctions practice. Over the years, he has successfully advised clients on numerous transactions, resolved sanctions disputes, settled enforcement actions, and secured favorable licenses and interpretations. He brings a unique and extensive wealth of knowledge and experience in sanctions law to each case. With a practical and detail-oriented approach, Mr. Eren provides clients with unparalleled legal guidance.
Mr. Eren possesses unique expertise in corporate matters, economic sanctions, export controls, anti-money laundering laws, business integrity regulations, and related dispute resolution. His seven and a half years with the U.S. Treasury have given him proven expertise in handling U.S. economic sanctions and anti-money laundering laws applicable to U.S. and non-U.S. banks, financial services companies, marine insurers, and shipowners. He also advises clients on compliance, defends them in enforcement actions, and manages dispute resolution.
Mr. Eren represents clients in court and before various entities, including tribunals handling international investor-state disputes such as the World Bank’s ICSID, and other arbitration forums. He regularly engages with the U.S. Treasury, State, Justice, and Commerce departments; U.S. federal banking regulators; the New York State Department of Financial Services; other state banking regulators; and U.S. federal prosecutors. Mr. Eren also serves as an expert witness in court and arbitration proceedings.
From 1992 to 2000, Mr. Eren served at the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the agency responsible for administering U.S. economic sanctions. In his last role at OFAC, he was Senior Sanctions Advisor.
Mr. Eren’s portfolio at OFAC was diverse, focusing on issues related to Libya, Yugoslavia, Iran, and Cuba. His cases involved international payments and clearing, complex financial and trade transactions, international loan syndications, and large frozen assets. Notably, he led policy and decisions regarding the apportionment of the London Club Debt of Yugoslavia among its successor states. At OFAC, he contributed to the formulation and drafting of executive orders, regulations, and guidelines, including those imposing sanctions on Yugoslavia and Iran. He also participated in drafting UN resolutions and the initial OFAC regulations governing sanctions against Iran, such as the Iranian Transactions Regulations. At OFAC, Mr. Eren also referred matters for penalties and contributed to reviews of proposed civil penalties for sanctions violations.
Mr. Eren authored legal interpretations on jurisdiction and third-country trade and played a material role in adjudicating exceptions to sanctions prohibitions. He played a key role in drafting memoranda for upper echelon Treasury policymakers and participated in interagency deliberations.
From 2000 to 2002, Mr. Eren practiced law at Clifford Chance’s Washington, D.C. office, where he advised and represented clients, firm attorneys, and the firm itself on economic sanctions and other U.S. financial and international trade regulatory matters.
Mr. Eren brings more than a decade of business and transactional experience to his legal practice. Many attorneys and law firms without OFAC service experience refer clients to or co-counsel with Mr. Eren for his unique knowledge and skills in economic sanctions matters.
Prior to joining the Treasury in 1992, Mr. Eren served as an executive of a real estate and infrastructure development company, a federal U.S. savings bank, and as an executive of an international merchant bank in Madrid, Spain, where he focused on marketing and financing significant projects in the civilian and military sectors in Europe and the Middle East.