Felt it was on the right side of the law when shipping seven million drives worth $1.1 billion. Oops
The United States Department of Commerce has fined Seagate $300 million for selling disk drives to Huawei, despite the Chinese company’s presence on its list of entities to which certain products can’t be sold without first securing a license.
In 2021 Seagate told our sibling publication Blocks and Files that it did always stays on the right side of the law. But in October 2022 the company notified investors [PDF] that the Department of Commerce’s s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) had sent it a letter alleging violations of the U.S. Export Administration Regulations.
Seagate again insisted it complied with all relevant rules, and that in any case its hard disk drives were not covered by export bans.
That position has now been found to be wrong: Seagate on Wednesday posted a filing [PDF] that states it has reached a settlement agreement with the Department that will see it pay $300 million over five years, in quarterly chunks of $15 million.
