Washington — On Thursday, the US hit oil giant ExxonMobil with a $2m fine for violating Ukraine-related sanctions at a time when secretary of state Rex Tillerson was still in charge of the company. The treasury department said Exxon had business dealings with Igor Sechin, president of Russian state energy company Rosneft, who was blacklisted under the sanctions imposed in the wake of the Russian annexation of Crimea. The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac), the principal agency overseeing US sanctions programmes, said Exxon failed to disclose the activity as required and "the violations constitute an egregious case". The Ofac said two US subsidiaries of Exxon signed eight legal documents with Sechin in May 2014 for oil and gas projects in Russia, after he was included in the sanctions in late April. Tillerson stepped down as CEO of Exxon in 2016 to serve as the Trump administration’s secretary of state.
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