United States of America: Issued Settlement Agreement between OFAC and Microsoft for apparent violations of sanctions against Cuba, Iran, Syria and Russia

On 6 April 2023, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury announced it had reached a settlement agreement with Microsoft Corporation in its investigation over the company’s apparent violations of US sanctions against Cuba, Iran, Syria and Russia. In particular, the apparent violations included the sale of software licenses, activated software licenses, and related services from servers and systems located in the United States and Ireland to blocked persons and other end users located in Cuba, Iran, Syria, Russia, and the Crimea region of Ukraine. Microsoft has agreed to pay USD 2,980,265.86 to settle its potential civil liability relating to the exportation of services or software to sanctioned jurisdictions.