Berkshire Hathway

"Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has agreed to pay roughly $4.1 million to settle allegations that a Turkish subsidiary violated U.S. sanctions on Iran. The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday alleged that Berkshire’s indirect subsidiary—Iscar Kesici Takim Ticareti ve Imalati Limited Sirket—sold cutting tools and related inserts to two third-party Turkish distributors between 2012 and 2016, knowing that the goods would be shipped to a distributor in Iran for resale to end-users there. Several of those recipients were identified later as Iranian government entities, according to the civil settlement agreement between Berkshire and the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Federal regulations prohibit any U.S. companies and their foreign subsidiaries from dealing with the government of Iran and its entities. Iscar Turkey, direct subsidiary of Berkshire’s IMC International Metalworking Companies B.V., completed 144 orders of goods worth about $383,000 that were shipped and resold to Iran. OFAC, which administers U.S. trade and economic sanctions, said the company’s conduct “represents particularly serious apparent violations of the law calling for a strong enforcement action.”"