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> and those companies are also having US clients, proving that it can be done. Proving they haven't been caught, or may not even know about the US Dept of Comm

• miracle2k 7y ago
  Yes, in a way they haven't been caught. However, I want to point out that only US companies and persons are obligated to follow the sanctions. The reason why foreign companies might also follow them is because they don't want to end up being designated themselves. And this is not realistically going to happen unless you are a large multinational, bank, or doing business in sensitive sectors. Not actively blocking accounts identified as Iranian is not even the same as specifically trading with Iran. Like many smaller US-based web-services who also do not actively block, Github might well have gotten away with it as well, like the did the last couple of years. A Maltese-based company not blocking Iranian users might be designated, but unless they are, and it is pretty unlikely that they would be, they are doing nothing wrong under US law.
  • Operyl 7y ago
    Like a certain sized company, Microsoft? And that's why we're in this situation, because frankly Microsoft is big enough to get slapped hard if they didn't comply.
  • mugsie 7y ago
    The real risk is to their US end users - if a US company is found to have commercial dealings with a company that has commercial dealings with Iran / N. Korea etc, the US company is in breach of the regulations. So in this case, if Bank of America had a company subscription with this hypothetical Maltese GitHub, BoA would be in breach, and could face sanctions (and this would probably cause the Maltese GH to get on the entity list as well)