Fines are now regularly announced

The US government has fined Deutsche Bank for trading with Sudan in contravention of US sanctions against the north African country.

US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) website said the European banking giant had transferred funds to Sudan in 1999 and 2000 and was fined a total of $10,000.

The US imposed sanctions against Sudan in 1997, claiming it was a sponsor of terrorism.

Avedis Zildjian, the world's leading maker of cymbals and the oldest family-run company in the US, was fined $2,000 for exports to Kosovo in 1999 and 2000 in the latest round of penalities.

US sanctions against Kosovo were lifted in 2001.

Some of America's biggest corporate names - including the New York Yankees, Citigroup, ChevronTexaco and WalMart - have been named recently for sanction busting and fines have reached $250,000.

Naming and shaming

The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac), which enforces US sanctions, recently began publishing penalties against corporations for sanction busting.

The Treasury has been criticised for not giving details of how the size of the fines are decided and for not publicising them more widely.

But since it began publishing lists in March, the Treasury has begun giving more details about which country and what type of deals were involved.

Other companies fined on the latest list includes shipping companies United Marine and SG Global for trading household items with Cuba.

Mining equipment supplier Bellwether Resources was fined $16,601 for export to Kosovo.