Britain’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) has fined Apple Distribution International Ltd £390,000 ($505,000) for breaching Russian sanctions, saying the Irish subsidiary of Apple Inc instructed a UK bank to make two payments totaling £635,618.75 to Russian streaming company Okko LLC in 2022 after Okko had become owned by a designated entity. 

The HM Treasury unit said Apple instructed one payment in June 2022 and another in July 2022, and failed to cancel them, allowing funds to reach Okko after its new owner, JSC New Opportunities, had been designated under the UK’s Russia sanctions regime. OFSI said that omission amounted to conduct in the UK because the payments were made through a UK-based bank. 

Russia’s largest financial institution, Sberbank, had previously owned Okko through May 2022 but sold the company along with a cloud service provider, a Fintech firm, a biometrics firm, and other streaming platforms, according to a May 2022 paper by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The paper separately cited Russian media figures who characterized the sale as an attempt to shield Sberbank’s assets from Western sanctions.

ADI voluntarily disclosed the payments in October 2022, OFSI said on Monday. 

The case is the first OFSI enforcement action to be resolved by settlement under the agency’s new framework, according to the penalty notice. OFSI said the matter underscored that non-UK companies using UK financial institutions for payments must comply with UK financial sanctions rules. 

Read the OFSI order here