Because others are answering you in much more detail, I’ll give them more generalized answer –
This is quite simply not how a sanctions regime works. The US government does not make a list of all the sanctioned persons’ assets, then start going after those in court.
Instead, it goes the other way: any company with a US nexus watches those sanction lists carefully. When someone is listed they look at their internal records for hits and denies them service. So no one told Microsoft anything; they self-enforced a sanction that applies to everyone in the US. And I mean everyone: if an individual knowingly violates these sanctions they’re breaking federal law - it’s not just companies.
This is quite simply not how a sanctions regime works. The US government does not make a list of all the sanctioned persons’ assets, then start going after those in court.
Instead, it goes the other way: any company with a US nexus watches those sanction lists carefully. When someone is listed they look at their internal records for hits and denies them service. So no one told Microsoft anything; they self-enforced a sanction that applies to everyone in the US. And I mean everyone: if an individual knowingly violates these sanctions they’re breaking federal law - it’s not just companies.