No, they were repeatedly warned to not violate sanctions but kept ignoring those warnings. If you break the law you have to deal with the consequences.
As released by the the Department of Commerce, ZTE has a document detailing:
1. how they evaded the sanction against Iran (destroying documents, re-export through a third country, deliberately removing logos from cargos, etc)
2. rewarding, rather than disciplining, staff involved in the evasion of sanction, an outright violation of the agreement they signed with Doc for a probationary punishment instead of a full-blown one
3. the resumption of sanction-evasive behaviors, while fully aware they are under active investigation
Did I mention ZTE had prepared another document detailing exactly how their competitor Huiwei does the same?
You really must be extremely naive to think that this has pure to do with not following the rules after all the different arguments Americans/British have produced why companies like Huwaei/ZTE/... (because America is so trustworthy) are bad. I have the feeling that they just found a stick to beat the dog.
"For my friends everything, for my enemies the law" - Óscar R. Benavides
Trade agreements limit the size of import tariffs that can be imposed and this bypasses those limits nicely. (Not that ZTE weren't stupid to do this in the first place).
On the other hand if it suits the right company they can do what they want. For example massive amounts of vanadium were shipped from the Congo to the US during sanctions for use by the US aircraft industry.
1. how they evaded the sanction against Iran (destroying documents, re-export through a third country, deliberately removing logos from cargos, etc)
2. rewarding, rather than disciplining, staff involved in the evasion of sanction, an outright violation of the agreement they signed with Doc for a probationary punishment instead of a full-blown one
3. the resumption of sanction-evasive behaviors, while fully aware they are under active investigation
Did I mention ZTE had prepared another document detailing exactly how their competitor Huiwei does the same?