As well as thousands of businesses worldwide? I don't believe that the Cayman Islands, where Binance is registered, has sanctions against Iran.
I once interviewed for a company that ran gambling websites (legal in the UK) and it was explained to me that if I worked there I would never be able to travel to the US. I declined the job. Some time later one of their executives was on a plane which was diverted to a US airport and he was arrested and charged.
Also, what about the other passengers in the plane? Annoying a bunch of passengers just to arrest one guy for working for a gambling website seems excessive, no? Or was it a private plane?
That seems... suboptimal.
All it takes is a corridor from arrivals to departures to allow people to leave again on a different plane out of the country.
Some US airports and airlines are like that for some flights (e.g. international delta flight to Detroit and then onward to Canada). Finally US customs figured that there’s less to worry about if you just hold onto my bags instead of forcing me to pick them up.
Yes. There are some details at the following article: https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Avoiding_travel_through_the_U...
(I mixed up the details in my hazy memory - I think my interview was in 2001, so over 20 years ago).
The Wikipedia page links to a different UK betting company / exec who was also arrested in the same manner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Dicks
Edit: And same company, different executive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kaplan Company looks super-shady in hindsight, I'm glad I didn't take that job :)
Sounds like they were just trying to make themselves sound like super-cool rebels, because there are plenty of very legal online gambling options in the United States.
It's not available nation-wide. You have to be physically located in a state that permits online gambling, and use a service that is aligned with a legal casino. But it's a billion-dollar legal industry in the United States.
With an newer exception for intrastate gambling
And an even newer exception for “games of skill” (sports fantasy stuff simply winning challenges to prohibitions)
Many other kinds of gambling sites use a seperate company for payments or just find a friendly bank to break the law
Regardless, the US consumer has many many options and does not have to care
Which law, exactly? Because there are plenty of legal ways to gamble online.
You just have to use an app that works with a legal casino, like MGM, Caesars, or one of the many many competitors, and be physically in a state where it's allowed.
GP suggests it's been 20 years since their interview. Looking through [0] sports betting was illegal almost everywhere until 2018. Prior to that, it was legal in much of Europe, and there were indeed a number of companies who were looking the other way on (and indeed indirectly marketing to) Americans, in violation of US laws.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambling_in_the_United_States#...
As well, just because there is one way where online gambling is legal, does not mean that all ways are legal. Ie, just because it’s doable, doesn’t mean that you can’t still be flouting the law.
Pretty sure the non-US Binance entity would like to be able to maintain dollar bank accounts, or let their executives and employees travel to America and allied territory. (Which is why they banned these users.)
It is.
> Xiaomi for example
Xiaomi was blacklisted [1]. Their CFO was arrested in Canada for fucking this up [EDIT: Nope!]. Xiaomi turned off their devices in Iran last year [2] in a bid to lift the restrictions.
> Samsung
There was a brief respite in sanctions during the nuclear deal. The pages you’re citing are from that era. Samsung withdrew from Iran [3]. Iran, for good measure, responded by banning them [4].
[1] https://www.cfo.com/accounting-tax/2021/01/xiaomi-and-cnoonc...
[2] https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202109/1234058.shtml
[3] https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Iran-tensions/Iran-sanctio...
[4] https://asiatimes.com/2021/11/iran-bans-goods-from-south-kor...
If I recall correctly, CFO of Huawei was arrested in Canada, not Xiaomi.
This is also beyond the general thing which is that you often have national-level subsidiaries that are only "sales partners" or the like.
I do think there's also some differences depending on the kind of goods sold. Binance existing and theoretically helping with circumvention of sanctions probably make it a beautiful target.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_case_of_Meng_Wan...
Sure seems like they thought they were subject to them.
> Lawyers say this structure means Binance is protected from direct U.S. sanctions that ban U.S. firms from doing business in Iran. This is because the traders in Iran used Binance's main exchange, which is not a U.S. company. But Binance does run a risk of so-called secondary sanctions, which aim to prevent foreign firms from doing business with sanctioned entities or helping Iranians evade the U.S. trade embargo. As well as causing reputational damage, secondary sanctions can also choke off a company's access to the U.S. financial system.
I know it's the internet and everyone just reads the headline but you could at least Ctrl- or Cmd-F before commenting.
In other words, (US) sanctions have a lot of ways to affect even corporations from third-party countries.
[1] https://asu.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/sanctions-and-...
[edit] Perhaps a more readable text is https://www.williamsmullen.com/news/us-sanctions-laws-danger...