Amber Road, a provider of global trade management (GTM) solutions, has announced a partnership with Dow Jones Risk & Compliance to offer enhanced Restricted Party Screening (RPS).

Amber Road has integrated Dow Jones Risk & Compliance’s Sanctions Ownership Research (SOR) list within their Global Knowledge database, which helps automate RPS processes to quickly vet customers, suppliers, and other trading partners against over 600 restricted and sanctioned party lists sourced from government institutions worldwide.  Automated RPS helps companies mitigate risk and avoid doing business with undesirable entities.

The US government blocks US companies from doing business with entities that are majority-owned by individuals on the Specially Designated National (SDN) list. Also known as the Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) or the “50 percent rule,” compliance requires diligent research on the part of importers and exporters into an organization’s structure – a daunting task for even the most well-equipped compliance team.

“The addition of Dow Jones’ SOR list to the screening process will help our customers stay in compliance and avoid doing business with firms owned in part or wholly controlled by sanctioned persons,” said Ty Bordner, SVP of Marketing and Business Development for Amber Road. “The Dow Jones SOR list goes beyond the industry standard and government requirements by including all individual ownership stakes of 10 percent or more.”

Alex Tame, Global Head of Partners and Content Integration, Dow Jones Risk & Compliance, said: “With businesses under more pressure than ever before to focus on compliance, we’re confident that our Sanctions Ownership Research data is the most comprehensive and accurate in the market. Working with Dow Jones’ SOR content will give Amber Road customers the data they need to make better informed decisions and meet their regulatory needs.”

By incorporating the Dow Jones SOR list, Amber Road’s automated RPS process identifies if the sum of the sanctioned owners adds up to a majority stake or not, as defined by EU and US regulators. Additionally, SOR identifies firms that are “controlled” by persons sanctioned by the US or EU: Firms with sanctioned persons either in upper management or on the Board of Directors who exert voting control. The SOR list not only covers individuals and firms subject to asset freezes, but also those who are subject to business restrictions due to their involvement in specific sectors of the global economy. This includes parties listed on the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Sectoral Sanctions Identification (SSI) List, and its EU equivalent and ISINs (International Securities Identification Number) of debt and equity securities subject to restrictions under the US and EU Ukraine-related sanctions programs.

Global Knowledge seamlessly integrates with Amber Road’s global trade management solutions, whereas most other providers require this content to be manually maintained during the execution of the transaction. With Global Knowledge, companies can realize significant productivity gains from eliminating this time-consuming task.