You will likely have seen the news that DeepCool was recently placed on the US sanctions list, preventing the company from operating in the USA, as a result of alleged sales to Russian businesses. We reached out to DeepCool to clarify the situation, and they sent us a response via a PDF document. While we initially published the contents of this document verbatim, it was made clear shortly afterwards by DeepCool that this had not passed through the legal channels. We did get authority that we could take sections of the document and interpret what they were saying in our own words. 

The document we were sent is broken down into five sections, where DeepCool breaks down and clarifies the situation from its perspective.

In the first part, the company states that they were placed on the ‘Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List,' or ‘SDN list' for short, due to sales worth over $1 million to two Russian companies who were placed on sanctions list in September last year – Aktsionernoe Obshchestvo Taskom and OOO Novi AI Ti Proekt. DeepCool later clarified that they only used Aktsionernoe Obshchestvo Taskom for logistics, and OOO Novyi Ai Ti Proekt is a memory/computer manufacturer that they were directly dealing with.

DeepCool states that it sold various cases, coolers and PSUs to OOO Novyi Ai Ti Proekt, up until 14th September 2023, at which point the Russian company was placed on the SDN blacklist by the US and DeepCool ceased trading with them. DeepCool adds that there were no rules preventing sales of its components to OOO Novyi Ai Ti Proekt until that point, and PSUs were only added to the Common High Priority List (CHPL) of banned items on February 23 2024. DeepCool also maintains that any sales were strictly intended for civilian use only, and nothing was intended for military use.

DeepCool then outlined how the sanctions meant they essentially had to stop trading as a US entity. However, the company says it immediately hired lawyers to develop a rectification plan, and re-iterated that the Russian companies it dealt with were not sanctioned while DeepCool sold its components to them.

DeepCool ends the statement by reaffirming its commitment to the laws and regulations of the countries it operates in, and vows to resolve its sanctions in compliance with said laws and regulations.

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KitGuru says: We wanted to share the crux of the statement we received from DeepCool so you can hear their side of the story. We will on hand to post any more coverage as the story develops.

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