PayPal To Pay $7.7 Million For Sanctions Violations

jfruh writes PayPal may not be a bank, but it's still legally required to follow regulations on transferring money — but the company has admitted to a number of violations, including allowing transfers to an individual specifically sanctioned by the U.S. State Department for helping proliferate nuclear weapons. From Ars: "On Wednesday afternoon, PayPal reached a settlement with the US Treasury Department, agreeing that it would pay $7.7 million for allegedly processing payments to people in countries under sanction as well as to a man the US has listed as involved in the nuclear weapons black market. The company neither confirmed nor denied the allegations, but it voluntarily handed over its transaction data to the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)."

Comments

Case of government being overzelous?

[dog77]

There was a total of only $50,000 in transactions that were in violation, and from the article it appears that Paypal failure was that their screening system did not work very well, but they eventually fixed it. Should that warrant $7,000,000 fine? It seems excessive to me.