I’m wondering whether heads will roll over this mistake.
Literally.
An Israeli IT company has sold an online business management system to the Teheran Chamber of Commerce.
Yehoshua Meiri, a spokesman for the Ramat Gan-based company DaroNet, said his company had sold Teheran’s Chamber of Commerce more than 70 licenses providing for the use of DaroNet’s signature business Web site management software.
The $1 million deal, signed last month at DaroNet’s European headquarters in Belgium, involved a down payment of $200,000, to be followed by 10 payments throughout the year.
“The deal is signed and delivered,” Meiri said. “They can’t go back on it now.”
Both direct and indirect trade between Israel and Iran is illegal in both countries.
Meiri said his company only realized it was selling the system to an Iranian entity when it was asked to translate the system into Farsi. The contract was signed with a European businessman from the Netherlands representing the Teheran Chamber of Commerce.
“Once we realized, we decided to lower our profile a bit on this issue,” he said. “I have no idea if they know we are Israeli, but anyway the deal is done and they know now.”
“Lots of Israelis do business with Iran,” he added. “From cherry tomatoes to high tech, it’s a $250m. trade.”
Officials at the Teheran Chamber of Commerce denied knowledge of the deal.
Meanwhile, the Iranians have gone with the standard “This did not happen. Now please excuse me while I go check something….”
“As far as I know, we have not bought anything from this company and our team has developed our own content management system,” said Hassan Ramazani, director of the Chamber of Commerce’s IT department. “But I must look into this matter and get back to you.”
