About Restricted Party Screening

Oracle Global Trade Management (GTM) is a global trade automation platform that enables companies to optimize and streamline business processes related to cross-border trade. With well-structured compliance policies and trade automation tools to help implement and enforce those policies, companies can achieve best practices in global trade both within and outside of their organizations. Restricted party screening is one of the processes used to support trade compliance. GTM’s Restricted Party Screening (RPS) services enable companies to perform screening of parties, trade transactions, and so on to ensure compliance with international shipping policies.

Government agencies throughout the world and other regional, unilateral, and multilateral agencies enforce regulations that restrict businesses and people from conducting trade with specific foreign entities (individuals, companies, countries). These entities are referred to as Denied, Debarred, and/or Restricted Parties (“Restricted Parties”). Examples of these entities include but are not limited to known terrorists, organizations that fund terrorists, and parties guilty of trade violations. Typically, the restricted parties are mainly countries subject to embargoes, and persons, businesses, and organizations subject to financial sanctions. Periodically, these agencies publish lists of entities that are marked as restricted parties.

In order to adhere to the regulations, companies screen their party master data and transactions against these lists, which can be very time consuming and laborious. Furthermore, if a business ships goods to a restricted party, it could incur fines, penalties, and ultimately the loss of export privileges.

GTM offers a configurable solution to screen parties against the various restricted party lists published by different government agencies. Parameters can be configured to optimize potential match results. The screening engine can be called at any point in a business process. You can screen parties at the time of party creation, which ensures they are cleared for compliance when transactions occur. You also have the option in GTM to screen parties at the time of transaction to ensure compliance. The following are the steps involved in the process of restricted party screening:

1. Data Content Source: Different government authorities release regular updates on various data content lists for compliance purposes. These government updates are regularly processed into a structured form by different content providers to be consumed and utilized by different companies. GTM content source helps companies to define the type of content (e.g. Restricted Party List, Product Classification, Rules of Origin, etc.) you want to download and access from different content providers. In addition, the content source defines how the content is downloaded using the HTTP protocol.
2. Download Data Content: This process enables you to download various trade content data to GTM, based on a data content source definition. You can trigger the download instantly or define a schedule for automatic downloads of data content at regular intervals.
3. Configure Screening Parameters: You can configure screening parameters to screen parties/contacts against the lists of restricted parties. GTM provides you with options to determine the potential matches based on matching engine (like keyword, dice engine), attributes for matching, threshold, and weighting of the overall matching. Additional parameters include exclusion lists, punctuation marks, etc.
4. Perform Screening: You can perform the screening in two different ways. First, you can perform an ad hoc screening before entering a party into the party manager in GTM. Second, you can perform restricted party screening based on parties, trade transactions, or declarations. You can perform multiple screenings on a party to meet different business needs (for example, restricted party list screening, red flag screening, debarred country, etc.).
5. Review Screening Results: Once screening has been performed, you can view the restricted parties that might potentially match with your parties and determine whether you can conduct business with the party or not. There are multiple user interfaces (UIs) in GTM that enable you to perform this action. In addition, the Restricted Party Workbench and Work Queues are provided which enable you to quickly and efficiently review the screening results if you are working in environments with a high volume of parties.