• Bjonay@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    “The EU doesn’t want companies supplying companies that do so.” <-- This is what’s strange, and new.

    Companies supplying companies - it’s an order of magnitude beyond the targets of the sanctions.

    It becomes impossible to predict which companies and services may be suddenly impacted.

    I’m all for the EU sanctions against Russia, and consequences for those entities breaching them. But Microsoft didn’t breach the sanctions, and should be used as a tool to punish those that do.

    • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      No, it’s not new or strange. It’s a normal component of sanctions, and it’s fundamentally how they’re implemented. Otherwise you could circumvent them by setting up two companies.

      It becomes impossible to predict which companies and services may be suddenly impacted.

      It’s pretty easy to predict. Do you do business with a sanctioned country? Then you’ll be impacted. Easy enough.

      I’m all for the EU sanctions against Russia, and consequences for those entities breaching them. But Microsoft didn’t breach the sanctions, and should be used as a tool to punish those that do.

      Are you under the impression that Microsoft is being punished in any way? They aren’t, they’re simply not allowed to do business with companies acting against sanctions if they want to keep doing business in the EU.

      • Bjonay@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Do you do business with a sanctioned country? Then you’ll be impacted. Easy enough.

        Microsoft isn’t doing business with a sanctioned country in this case. That, yet again, is my point. You keep conflating Microsoft with the company actually breaching the EU sanctions.

        Microsoft are absolutely being punished - they were forced to make choice between “doing business in the EU” (what exactly the EU threatened is unclear to me) or losing the contract value, plus whatever they may incur in damages though breach of contract.

        • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Then please explain to me one simple thing - how do you implement sanctions when they can be circumvented by setting up a single company?