Amazon pays $135,000 in settlement of violating US sanctions

July 10, 2020: Amazon agrees to pay $135,000 to the United States to settle the allegations against Amazon. As per the US Treasury Department, the company should not sell products and services to the blacklisted people. However, Amazon was continuously selling goods and allowing the blacklisted people to use their platform and deliver products from Nov 2011- Oct 2018.

The failure of Amazons customer sanction screening process has made the government file the allegation against the technology giant. According to the Office of Foreign Control, the company has failed to analyze the customer data and transaction-related to compliance. The restriction of providing service to a few countries like Iran, Syria, Crimea was violated from Amazon in between Nov 2011 to Oct 2018 as per the report.

Processing order to persons employed or located in Cuba, Syria, Crimea was another allegation from the OFAC. Other violations included sanction of narcotics in the United States.

The company itself disclosed all the violations to the department and this has helped OFAC to go ahead with a settlement with the final charge of $135,000 on Thursday. The customers continuously played a role to manipulate; Amazon’s screening process by using an alternate spelling for regions, like Krimea for Crimea.

Last year the tech giant Apple also paid a total of $467,000 to settle similar allegations of selling products to blacklisted entities and individuals for two long years.