Amazon agreed to pay 134 523 dollars to settle charges that it violated multiple sanctions programs of the United States, selling goods and services to people from the blacklist of the us Treasury Department, as well as to residents of countries or regions, against which there are economic sanctions. This is stated in a press release.
According to the office for foreign assets control (OFAC), which monitors compliance with sanctions on behalf of the Treasury, automated processes check the Amazon “was never fully able to track all the data about transactions and customers in relation to the sanctions regime”.
As noted in the message of Department, from November 2011 to October 2018 persons in the Crimea, Iran and Syria made orders and concluded transactions on the Amazon websites.
According to reports, the company also processed the orders persons living or working in foreign missions in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.
Also reported sales to persons subject to U.S. sanctions related to drugs, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and global terrorism.
The office of foreign assets control, however, noted that Amazon has voluntarily disclosed the alleged violations and took steps to remedy the situation — and this affected the overall amount of the settlement.
The background
According to reports, under sanctions of the organization bypassed the verification process Amazon using alternative spellings of the name of the region — for example, Krimea instead of Crimea (Crimea) — or by ordering the delivery to the foreign missions under sanctions from countries such as Iran.
Last year, Apple paid about 467 000 dollars for settlement of similar charges in violation of U.S. sanctions. It is reported that Apple was doing business with the company from the black list more than two years, since the verification mechanism did not account for the difference in spelling and case.
