An Australian company is caught out and fined under American law despite following local shipping rules.

A Sydney couple is charged for unwittingly violating United Nations nuclear sanctions against Iran.

A New Zealand aerospace company falls foul of UN restrictions when one of its products appears at a North Korean air show.

These real world examples demonstrate the pitfalls of doing business in a volatile global trade environment fuelled by geopolitical rivalries, fragmented supply chains and weaponised economic policy.

Trade sanctions have become a key feature of all this, and they often leave small firms caught in the crossfire.

Our research examines how sanctions operate in practice, the loopholes that weaken them, and the burden placed on smaller firms that lack the compliance capacity of multinationals.

We examined how sanctions affect day-to-day business operations, why targeted economies continue to function, how firms circumvent restrictions, and what this means for enforcement.

The findings reveal the need for strong oversight combined with flexibility that means legitimate small businesses are not unfairly penalised.

Sanctions now frequently target Russia, Iran, North Korea and Syria, restricting access to oil, technology and finance. Yet they often contain legal grey areas that blunt their intended effects.

When Australia banned direct imports of Russian oil in 2022, for example, fuel refined from Russian crude continued........

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