Sanctions fines: what went wrong, and the lesson
Public enforcement cases, each with its source and the practical lesson for an importer. Not to frighten — to show the pattern: nearly every case traces back to a name that was never screened, a register that was never searched, or a payment that touched a currency nobody thought about. The free screen on this site searches the lists these fines rest on.
These are public enforcement outcomes as reported by the authorities and specialist press. A settlement is not an admission by every party mentioned in reporting; descriptions here stay factual and name only what the public record names.
~$265.7 million
OFAC civil penalties in 2025 (Visual Compliance, 2026 trends)
up to ~$377,700
per civil violation under IEEPA, or twice the transaction value
nearly €615 million
EU member-state fines since February 2022
Individual settles with OFAC for $3.78 million (Syria)
US measures reach non-US persons wherever US dollars, persons, goods or software touch the chain. A dollar payment through a US correspondent bank is enough. Free screen: https://importrules.com/sanctions/
UK OFSI fines an investment bank £4.73 million
UK designations do not bind an EU company as law, but EU banks screen against them anyway. The blocked payment and reviewed account arrive before any fine does.
EU member states together impose nearly €615 million
Over 12,500 investigations across member states. Enforcement is no longer a story about banks; importers and traders are in the scope.
FTI agrees to $1.05 million export-control settlement
Export-control registers (Entity List, Denied Persons, ITAR) bite outside the sanctions freeze lists. Our check searches eleven of those registers alongside the freeze lists.
German BAFA administrative fines up to €500,000 for negligent breaches
Negligence suffices in Germany. Not screening at all is the most expensive way to save ten minutes; a dated screening record of EUR 29 is the cheapest insurance in this list.
The pattern behind these fines
Screening failures, not cunning schemes. A counterparty that was listed all along; a register nobody opened; an assumption that EU law stops at the border. Every case on this page would have been visible in a name search against the right lists — which is free here, takes seconds, and leaves a dated record when you need to show you checked.
Source: the enforcement pages named per case; totals as published by Visual Compliance (2026 trends) and European enforcement reporting. Checked: 20 September 2026.