Screen a Name
Who Is Required to Screen
Sanctions screening is not optional for large parts of the economy. US persons are generally prohibited from transacting with SDN-listed entities and individuals, and with 50%-owned subsidiaries of listed parties. In practice, screening is mandatory for banks and financial institutions, is expected of exporters (the US Department of Commerce's BIS requires denied-party screening of export transactions), and is standard practice for anyone doing cross-border payments, freight, insurance, or high-value procurement. Even where not legally mandated, screening is the cheapest liability insurance a business can buy: unknowingly transacting with a listed party can trigger enforcement regardless of intent.
What the Lists Contain
- OFAC SDN List — the flagship US list: designated individuals, entities, vessels, and aircraft, plus address, alias, and ID data.
- Consolidated Sanctions List — the SDN list plus non-SDN lists such as the Foreign Sanctions Evaders list and Sectoral Sanctions Identifications list.
- EU Consolidated List — asset-freeze designations across all EU sanctions regimes.
- UK OFSI Consolidated List — the United Kingdom's asset-freeze list under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act.
A proper screening tool checks all of these, because a match on the EU or UK list matters to any party transacting through those jurisdictions even when the name is not on the US list.
How to Evaluate a Match
Most screening results are false positives: common names produce matches on any list. A meaningful match requires alignment of more than the name:
- Exact legal name — abbreviations and punctuation differences should be discounted; a true match uses the listed name verbatim or a known alias.
- Address — the listed address matching your counterparty's registered address is the strongest signal.
- Identifiers — vessel IMO numbers, EINs, or passport numbers listed for the subject.
- Country context — SDN entries usually carry nationality or location data; a US-based LLC matching a name with an Iranian or North Korean designation context is almost certainly a different entity.
When the data aligns, stop the transaction and escalate — do not transact and "hope it is a different John Smith." When it does not align, document the review and proceed.
What Our Screening Covers
The OFAC tool on The Verified HQ checks a name against the OFAC SDN list, the EU consolidated list, and the UK OFSI list, and flags near matches for manual review. The Risk Assessment Report goes further, combining sanctions results with adverse media, PEP status, and financial-distress signals into a single compliance rating.