The UK government has imposed a £390,000 fine on an Apple subsidiary for violating sanctions against Moscow through payments made to a Russian streaming service.

Apple Distribution International, headquartered in the Republic of Ireland, directed a UK-based bank to process two payments to a company owned by a sanctioned Russian entity.

The payments, totalling more than £635,000, were made to the streaming platform Okko from an ADI bank account in the UK.

ADI oversees the sale of Apple products across Europe and the Middle East, including through the company’s App Store.

The penalty was issued by the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, the UK Treasury’s sanctions enforcement agency.

“OFSI imposed a monetary penalty on ADI because it was satisfied, in relation to these payments, that on the balance of probabilities ADI had breached prohibitions imposed by financial sanctions legislation,” the watchdog said.

Okko was acquired by Sberbank, Russia’s largest lender, in 2018. However, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it was sold to a company called JSC New Opportunities, which the UK government sanctioned in June 2022.

The payments to Okko were made in June and July of that year.

Sberbank was one of the first Russian firms placed on the UK’s sanctions list after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The US think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, suggested that Sberbank’s sale of Okko to an “obscure company” was likely an “attempt to shield those assets from Western sanctions.” JSC New Opportunities was established in March 2022.

OFSI noted that ADI voluntarily reported the payments, and the fine was issued following settlement discussions. The agency added that ADI had no reason to believe the payments violated sanctions.