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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: 2) by MrGuy on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:18PM
OK, anyone doing business with Iran is a Bad Thing. And Dell is a technology company, so stuff they do is, I guess, on target.
But really, guys? This? From the look of the pricing here, Dell sold 8-10 desktop computers and a service contract to two entities based in friendly countries, except those entities were Iranian embassies. This is around $6,000 worth of hardware and support, depending on the exchange rate.
This isn't exactly IBM and the holocaust" [wikipedia.org] level of technology profiteering by helping oppressive countries do terrible things. This isn't like setting up Iran's nuclear program [npr.org] level of helping troublesome countries gain dangerous technology.
This is a couple of desktop machines that pushed metaphorical paper in an embassy. Sure, they should't have done it, and yes, it was illegal.
But calling this major news is blowing it WAY out of proportion.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tathra on Wednesday December 14 2016, @05:08PM
embassies are usually considered part of their home country, so a US embassy in Germany is considered US soil, an Iranian embassy in the US is considered Iranian soil, etc (this is why the UK can't do anything about Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, if the police stormed in it would be considered an invasion of a foreign country), so they're not selling to entities based in friendly countries, they're selling directly to what the US considers a foreign hostile government.
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Thursday December 15 2016, @12:44AM
Right. I get this.
However, this is likely some sales guy in Germany, selling to someone who they meet with in Germany, selling stuff they think is going to Germany, even though TECHNICALLY it's going to Iran via extraterritoriality. Since the sale didn't even take place in the US, the restrictions of US law might not have even been something on the salesperson's mind, even though technically they should be trained to know better.
A mistake was made. It's, in the scheme of things, not a very large mistake. I probably make mistakes that cost my company more than $6,000 on a regular basis.
I still don't see why this is NEWSWORTHY.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday December 14 2016, @07:24PM
If, as a result of their actions, the US Govt decided that Dell had contravened US sanctions they could punish Dell for doing so. If that punishment cost Dell rather more than the cost of a few desktop machines then I can imagine that many shareholders would be very unhappy with Dell for taking such a rash action. Dell might even have left themselves open to legal proceedings for the loss of profits. That would most certainly be 'News'.
Dell did the sensible thing. It is a trivial sum of money, but by admitting the error and promising that the deal is now dead, they will avoid all such action. There is no point in arguing that the US Govt wouldn't do such a thing; there is nothing to be gained by imposing sanctions against a country if you are not going to enforce them and punish those who ignore them.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday December 14 2016, @07:28PM
This is around $6,000 worth of hardware and support, depending on the exchange rate.
This isn't exactly IBM and the holocaust" [wikipedia.org] level of technology profiteering by helping oppressive countries do terrible things. This isn't like setting up Iran's nuclear program [npr.org] level of helping troublesome countries gain dangerous technology.
Well ... not profiteering, no. But what will $3000 buy you in terms of hardware today that will allow an oppressive country to do terrible things? It's not like terribleness or Uranium has kept up with Moore's law.
Maybe the quality of support you get for the other $3000 has degraded so much in the last 80 years that it cancels out Moore's law on $3000 in hardware. I'm going with that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @08:37PM
And it's not Iran that is the country causing most of the problems in the Middle East for that you will have to look at the USA and its allies like UK and Saudi Arabia.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-secretly-backed-syrian-opposition-groups-cables-released-by-wikileaks-show/2011/04/14/AF1p9hwD_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
https://theintercept.com/2015/10/26/bbc-protects-uks-close-ally-saudi-arabia-with-incredibly-dishonest-and-biased-editing/ [theintercept.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14 2016, @09:14PM
Did they get the special NSA discount?
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday December 15 2016, @02:26PM
sudo mod me up