Comment Voluntary disclosure drastically reduces the fines (Score 4, Insightful) 37
The fine amount may seem very very low. If Amazon had not voluntarily disclosed their violations to OFAC and had been caught, the maximum fines they faced would have been in the hundreds of millions or billions.
Given that, and how drastically the fine was reduced, Amazon has a very high incentive to self-report its violations (which it did) and to institute changes that ensure this will not happen again (only the future knows). OFAC wants companies to self-police and build compliance into their regular operations. It does that by reducing the fines.
It is also worth noting that, small fine aside, Amazon has to admit to the world that they sent goods to parties and countries they shouldn't have and had inadequate controls to prevent that from happening. When is the last time you read an article where a company admitted its guilt? Almost all the time it comes to a lawsuit with a big fine but no admission of guilt. This is the opposite. If sometime down the road we find out that whatever it was Amazon moved to those sanctioned countries is used for nefarious purposes (e.g., used in a terrorist attack, used in government scandal, or similar), it makes Amazon look complicit. That's also a really bad look for them. It may not affect Amazon long-term, but you could imagine how that could permanently harm a smaller business.
