Paying someone on the OFAC list was already illegal whether ransomware was involved or not. The novelty of the circumstances don't change anything. The novelty

Paying someone on the OFAC list was already illegal whether ransomware was involved or not. The novelty of the circumstances don't change anything. The novelty of the circumstances do change the futile utility of making an announcement about it, as there should be no way of knowing that a ransomware operator is on the OFAC list, and there should be no way of knowing that you paid a ransomware operator that was or was not on the OFAC list. I don't have an opinion about your question and never addressed it and won't address it, as it is completely moot. As people adopt these technologies for more benign purposes, the peculiarity of using them "when you need to" goes away.