HP’s unusual omnipresence inside Iran was first reported in 2008 by the Boston Globe, which discovered that in 1997 the company struck up a partnership with a new Indian company in Dubai called Redington Gulf. The partnership was so successful distributing in Iran that HP printers were No. 1 there,, with 41 percent of the market share by 2007.

All U.S. companies were banned from exporting to Iran in 1995, when President Bill Clinton issued two executive orders tightening sanctions on Iran in response to Iran’s support for international terrorism and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. If HP executives knew about what the Dubai-based distributor was doing, they would have been breaking U.S. law.

After the Globe article came out, the Securities and Exchange Commission, which investigates violations of sanctions, wrote HP a letter inquiring about the Iran business. HP responded by saying that over $120 million worth of its  products had been sold to Redington Gulf for distribution in Iran by a foreign subsidiary based in the Netherlands. Because these sales took place through a foreign subsidiary, HP denied violating sanctions law.