Skip to content
Back to Compliance Academy

Product context is educational relevance, not a feature-status or compliance claim.

Context: Visitor
Context: Education
Context: Trade
Context: Regulated Access
Adjudication
Compliance Manager
Admin

What is a disposition?

The recorded outcome of a screening review, such as cleared, escalated, blocked, or another product- or policy-specific decision state.

Last Reviewed: 2026-09-19Plain-English reference · not legal advice

Plain-English Summary

A disposition is the organization’s documented outcome for a screening alert or compliance case. The available disposition codes are internal workflow choices and can differ by product and organization. The disposition should preserve enough rationale to explain how the reviewer resolved the potential match and what follow-up action was required.

Why This Matters

A consistent disposition process makes screening decisions reproducible and auditable. OFAC recommends keeping complete records of the steps used to investigate potential matches and the information relied upon, while BIS guidance emphasizes clear procedures and recordkeeping as elements of an effective export compliance program.

Explanation Depth

Concept Explanation

After reviewing an alert, the reviewer records what happened. That recorded result is the disposition. It might say the alert was a false positive, needs escalation, must be blocked, or needs another type of follow-up.

When You'll See This in SecurePoint

SecurePoint disposition and status values are product-specific. They record human review outcomes and can drive downstream workflow state, but they do not themselves file anything with a regulator or replace the customer’s legal determination.

What You Should Do Next

Choose the disposition that accurately reflects the review result, record the objective facts and source restriction that support it, and follow the downstream control required by your organization’s policy. If the facts are still unresolved, use an escalation or review state rather than forcing a clear decision.

What Can Go Wrong

Using vague or inconsistent disposition codes makes later review difficult. Treating an internal disposition as if it were a regulator determination is another error; the organization still has to apply the governing sanctions or export rule and any reporting obligations that follow.
What is a disposition? | Compliance Academy | SecurePoint USA