On April 6, 2023, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed a combined $3.3 million in civil penalties against Microsoft Corporation for alleged and apparent violations of U.S. export controls and sanctions laws.

Between July 2012 and April 2019, the Microsoft Entities engaged in 1,339 apparent violations of multiple OFAC sanctions programs when they sold software licenses, activated software licenses, and/or provided related services from servers and systems located in the United States and Ireland to SDNs, blocked persons, and other end users located in Cuba, Iran, Syria, Russia, and the Crimea region of Ukraine. The total value of these sales and related services was $12.1 Mn.
On seven occasions between December 28, 2016, and December 22, 2017, employees of Microsoft entered into a software licensing agreement that would allow the transfer of or access to software subject to the EAR by FAU Glavgosekspertiza Rossii and United Shipbuilding Corporation Joint Stock Company, both of which were on BIS’s Entity List.

Microsoft Corporation, USA, and its subsidiaries, Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd. and Microsoft Rus LLC, are involved in the sanctions and BIS export control violations.