Black Sea Compliance · Turkey · Romania · Bulgaria

Your Turkish supplier passes local screening. Your bank will not be reading the local list

Turkey applies UN sanctions and its own national list, but never joined the EU and US regimes. So a Turkish counterparty can hold spotless local standing, working bank accounts and a clean report from a local provider — while sitting in OFAC SDN. Romania and Bulgaria are EU members, which means the lists apply there; it does not mean the company in front of you is clean, on an energy and logistics node built on transit. We screen the counterparty against the lists your bank, insurer and buyer will actually use.

From $199. First read within 24 hours.

Exposure Screening

$199

⏱ About 24 hours

One company, one jurisdiction — Turkey, Romania or Bulgaria
Corporate identity: registry record, status, directors, first-tier shareholders, capital
Cross-screening against OFAC SDN, EU consolidated, UN, UK OFSI, Ukraine's NSDC register and the local list
Connected parties: companies sharing an address or a director
Red-flag read: incorporation date against deal size, recent change of owner or director
A verdict with a confidence level — not a list of links

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Recommended

Deep Trace

$499

⏱ 3–5 working days

Everything in Exposure Screening
Ownership chain reconstructed beyond tier one — in Turkey through Trade Registry Gazette history back to 1992
Cross-border layer: related entities in third jurisdictions, common officers and addresses
Goods and route analysis: dual-use categories, re-export patterns, end destination
Public procurement footprint — EKAP, SEAP/SICAP or CAIS EOP: state ties and contract history
RFI block: the exact questions to put to the counterparty, the documents to request, and how to read an evasive answer

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Why the local check misses it

Three jurisdictions on one route, three different blind spots

01 · Turkey

Does not mirror EU or US lists

Turkey applies UN sanctions and a national list, and never joined the Western regimes against russia. A counterparty can hold clean local standing and working bank accounts while sitting in OFAC SDN. Dozens of Turkish intermediaries have been designated over re-export of high-priority items.

02 · Romania

EU member on an energy node

EU sanctions apply directly, which means there is someone to designate a local company — not that yours is clean. Romania carries Russian-rooted refining assets and Black Sea logistics. On the upside, the court portal and company financials are free and open, so the check goes deeper here than anywhere in the triangle.

03 · Bulgaria

EU member on the FATF grey list

The commercial register is among the most open in the EU, which makes collection cheap. The country stays under FATF increased monitoring, so enhanced due diligence on a Bulgarian counterparty is expected of you by your own regulator, not just advisable.

What we check

Six places the trail hides

Exposure rarely sits on the surface as a name from a list. It is scattered across details that look harmless one by one — and damning in combination.

01 · Ownership

The chain above tier one

A designated person is rarely written into the company itself — they sit two floors up, behind a holding in a third jurisdiction. We follow the chain as far as the registries allow and flag where it goes dark.

02 · Recent change

New owner or director

Especially when it happened shortly after the previous owner appeared on a list. Re-registering an asset to a relative or a manager is the most common manoeuvre, and it is visible in the registry history.

03 · Age vs size

A young company on a large contract

A firm registered a few months ago that immediately handles six-figure supply is not growth — it is a conduit. We compare incorporation date, filed financials and the size of the deal you are being offered.

04 · Goods

Dual-use categories

Electronics, bearings, navigation equipment, machine tools and components — the categories that draw secondary sanctions to intermediaries. We check what the counterparty actually trades against the high-priority item lists.

05 · Route

Logistics and end destination

A route that turns further east, transhipment without commercial logic, a vessel under a flag of convenience that changed owner in the past year. The paperwork can be clean while the routing is not.

06 · Address

Connected entities

Registration at an address shared with a dozen companies under common directors is the classic signature of a technical structure rather than a producer. We map the cluster around your counterparty.

How it runs

From brief to verdict

Brief

You give us the company name, registration number or website, the jurisdiction and what the deal is. Under NDA you can withhold the name and describe the case instead.

Collect

Corporate registries, ownership history, procurement platforms, court and insolvency records where they are open. Only public sources — no pretexting, no paid look-ups.

Cross-screen

Every person and entity in the chain against OFAC SDN, the EU consolidated list, UN, UK OFSI, Ukraine's NSDC register and the local list — simultaneously, not one at a time.

Verdict + RFI

A read on exposure with a confidence level, the gaps we could not close, and the exact questions to put to the counterparty before you sign.

More on the Intelligence Cycle methodology →

Why it pays off

$199 of screening against one payment stuck in a compliance review

A blocked transfer does not simply come back — it opens a file, and your bank asks why you were dealing with an intermediary it just found on a list
The cost is rarely the money alone: a broken delivery schedule, a buyer who walks, and an insurer who reads the same list your bank did
Screening before the contract is signed is cheaper than explaining the same chain afterwards, when the answers have to satisfy someone else
Where we find nothing, that is a result too — a documented clean read you can put in front of your compliance team

Screen a counterparty

Questions

Frequently asked

Why can a Turkish company be clean on local screening and toxic for my bank?

Turkey applies UN sanctions and its own national list, but does not mirror the EU and US regimes. A Turkish bank or local checking service will not see a hit against OFAC SDN or the EU consolidated list — for them the company is clean. For you it is toxic, because your bank, insurer and European buyer will assess the same chain against exactly those lists. The difference is not the quality of the check, it is which list is being read.

Romania and Bulgaria are EU members. Is the sanctions risk not covered there?

EU sanctions apply directly in both, so the legal framework is there. What the framework does not do is tell you whether your specific counterparty is exposed. Both countries sit on an energy and logistics node with real Russian exposure — refining assets with Russian roots, Black Sea shipping, transit arrangements. Bulgaria is also on the FATF list for increased monitoring, which means enhanced due diligence on Bulgarian counterparties is expected of you anyway.

What can you actually see without a local office in these countries?

More than most expect. In Turkey the corporate registry MERSIS, the Trade Registry Gazette with ownership-change history back to 1992, and the public procurement platform EKAP are open. In Romania the court portal and company financial statements are free. In Bulgaria the commercial register is one of the most open in the EU — searchable without a local ID, with public financial statements. Closed layers exist too: Turkish beneficial ownership, third-party court files, and property owner data.

What if the ultimate beneficial owner is not disclosed anywhere?

We reconstruct the ownership chain from what is open — current shareholders, the history of ownership changes over the years, related companies sharing addresses and directors. Whatever cannot be closed from open sources becomes a direct question to the counterparty, with the documents they should produce and a note on how to read an evasive answer. A refusal to name the ultimate owner before a large deal is itself an answer.

How long does it take?

The Exposure Screening of a single company takes about 24 hours. Deep Trace, with ownership-chain reconstruction, related parties and route analysis, runs three to five working days depending on how many jurisdictions sit in the chain. The slow part is not collecting data but clearing matches — identical names are common, and every hit has to be confirmed or ruled out before it goes in the report.

⚖️

This is intelligence analysis, not legal advice. Argus Intel works exclusively with publicly available information — state registries, corporate databases, sanctions lists, open offshore leaks, court and procurement records. Sanctions status is determined by the competent authority, not by an analyst: we establish and document the link and its strength. The legal call on whether the deal can proceed is yours and your counsel's.