Dell has admitted it violated United States sanctions against Iran.
The company has filed an IRANNOTICE and explained the violation in its latest Form 10Q.
The violation is not serious because the United States' sanctions are very broad, covering "goods, services, technology, information, or support" that could in any way help the nation to develop its petroleum resources. Forget doing anything that could help Iran go nuclear, too.
[...] Dell's violations occurred outside Iran: the 10Q reports that in the first half of 2016 the company sold "desktop computers, computer stands, and a server, and associated warranty support" to the Iranian embassies in Germany and France. The transactions secured "net revenue of approximately 4,998 Euros and realized net profits of approximately 1,231 Euros from the three sales."
[...] Dell's since dissolved those deals and won't provide further support.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @03:38PM
What stops a country like China, India, Russia, etc. from selling or re-selling to Iran?
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:20PM
Or manufacturing their own and selling them to Iran?
Nothing. Nothing at all. The US hardly has a monopoly on PC manufacturing.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Wednesday December 14 2016, @06:18PM
The US can't prevent you from selling to Iran directly.
But the US can deny you access to their markets (especially financial markets) because you are doing business with people they consider unpleasant.
Get a $6k contract with Iran, get locked out of US market ... Most companies just make a simple business choice.
Same applies to UN sanctions on North Korea ... You can trade with them if you don't mind that nobody else will trade with you.
Also, try to not make your trades in dollars, because the US has used "but they used dollars" to go after companies doing unapproved trading which had no US involvement.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:37PM
As someone who works at an international company that deals in controlled electronics: a little but not much.
If you have any reason to suspect that the end purpose of the purchase of your company's goods violates a export restriction, and you don't do due diligence to assure yourself that it's not, you can be criminally liable. What this usually boils down to is when dealing internationally, there's a lot of bookkeeping of who bought what from what country and for what purpose.
Does it prevent export restriction dodges? Not at all. Does it make it harder to do casually? A little.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:58AM
> What stops a country like China, India, Russia, etc. from selling or re-selling to Iran?
If we are talking about the sanctions that brought Iran to the nuclear negotiation table then those countries all agreed to enforce those sanctions too. But once the nuke treaty was signed, those sanctions were lifted, so that's moot.
If we are talking about the current, reduced and unilateral sanctions the US has against Iran for various other issues, not too much since those countries aren't party to them.