Apple has been fined £390,000 after it was found to have breached Russian sanctions.
The technology giant has been handed a penalty over two payments totalling £635,618 in June and July 2022 that it made to Okko, a Russian streaming app, Britain’s sanctions watchdog said.
Until May 2022, Okko was owned by Sberbank, a bank controlled by Moscow that was sanctioned after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine . It was then sold to a new owner, JSC New Opportunities, which itself was sanctioned by the Foreign Office in June that year.
However, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) found that Apple Distribution Limited, an international branch of Apple based in Ireland, continued to make payments to Okko on June 30 and July 28 in 2022.
OFSI said there had been a “narrow window in which the [first] payment could potentially have been cancelled” before it completed, taking into account JSC’s sanctioned status.
The watchdog said Apple had also made more than £1.2m in payments to Okko in April that year. At the time, Okko was controlled by Sberbank, which was already sanctioned. However, these payments occurred before stricter sanctions liability rules were introduced.
According to a Government penalty notice, Apple had relied on “self-certification” by app developers to establish whether their ownership could pose a sanctions risk, as well as third-party due diligence.
The watchdog said that Apple’s failure to enhance its sanctions processes in early 2022 “by affirmatively requesting ownership information from Russian-paid app developers very likely contributed to the breach payments occurring”.
It added that Apple’s potential fine had been reduced from £600,000 after it voluntarily disclosed the sanctions failure to officials and entered settlement talks.
The penalty notice said Apple was not aware that Okko was sanctioned and the breach was not intentional.
An Apple spokesman said: “We follow the laws in the countries where we operate and take sanctions compliance extremely seriously. After identifying two payments to a developer that days earlier had become affiliated with a sanctioned entity, we promptly and proactively reported our findings to the UK Government.
“We are constantly working to enhance our already robust compliance protocols, which are consistent with industry standards.”
Apple has previously been fined thousands of pounds by Russian courts for failing to censor content deemed illegal by Moscow. It also paid a $13m (£9.8m) fine to Moscow in 2024 over alleged competition law violations in Russia.
The iPhone-maker halted all product sales in Russia in March 2022. However, the company’s App Store still works in the country. Apple has previously obeyed demands from Russian regulators to block apps used to evade censorship.
The fine from the OFSI comes amid a wider crackdown by the regulator on companies and entrepreneurs backed by Moscow.
More than £28.7bn of frozen Russian assets have been reported to OFSI, which is part of the Treasury.
In its annual report last year, OFSI said it had issued fines to businesses for sanctions breaches in 2025 totalling £500,000. Last year, it fined Herbert Smith Freehills, a top City law firm, £465,000 over payments to Russian banks.
The law firm said the payments were down to “human error” during the winding up of its Russian offices.
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