I was thinking this exact thing, they have the Massachusetts subsidiary, so why not?

I would still call this a "refuse to" vs "can do", but hey, Apple can keep that money - keeps the layoffs away.

Violating OFAC sanctions can result in extreme consequences, including prison for up to 30 years and fines in the millions of dollars. It would be prudent and reasonable for Apple to do nothing rather then to do something that invites this type of inquiry. To do nothing invites, at most, a de minimis amount of reputational risk.

Reputational risk can lead to security risk if researchers think Apple is not paying bounties anymore.

If you’re a security researcher who potentially falls under OFAC sanctions. Everyone else will likely still get paid.

Yes, of course, they can't work around OFAC sanctions, but donating the bounty to a charity would probably have been 100% fine, and a show of good will.

It's not the first time we've seen Apple not playing nice with their bug bounty programme, so it's something of a pattern of behaviour. "A show of good will" is exactly what they need.

“probably fine” is not the comment I would’ve wanted from my lawyer. There are tons of ways this could’ve gone south. For example, which charity? What if Kaspersky benefited from a tax break as a result. Etc. etc. why take a chance?

So why are they even able to have the Massachusetts subsidiary? Is every vendor doing business with that corporation also violating sanctions?

Yep. Despite the Hacker News peanut gallery essentially yelling “debate me!”, exposing the public to these specifics has never been part of Apple’s MO.

> Explaining why just invites argument.

... and who knows where that could lead. Why, the rabble might get the idea that they're allowed to disapprove of decisions Apple makes!

> I don't think it has any benefit for them to explain why.

It clearly has. There are lots of hackers and security researchers who will make very different decisions depending on if they expect Apple will honor their bounties. Traditionally, people who report security bugs have been treated poorly, and arbitrary rejections certainly helps move the incentives towards the exploit market instead.