Lasers to Iran: U.S. Export Regulations are serious business.
According to Just Anti-Corruption, U.S.-based PRC Laser has been fined $42,000 by the U.S. Commerce Department for shipping an industrial laser to Iran through a 3rd party based in Dubai. The laser itself sold for $39,000.
If the material had been more sensitive, the company could have been banned from exporting its products and perhaps excluded from making any sales to the U.S. government.
As has been noted on previous occasions on this site, a terrifically weak link in regulatory compliance is a third party distributor. If PRC laser had ever visited Dubai, they would likely have noticed the huge amount of business that Iran does there and was likely doing with their “end customer”. Iran is in fact one of the UAE’s largest trading partners and Iranian-owned businesses dot the industrial zones around the city-states.
As an old law professor once put it to this writer, “before you make the deal, walk the land.”