Maybe, but not necessarily. I bet many of us paper over requirements we think don't add value, where we can get away with it. Solely because we think it adds no value.
While both might be illegal, there's a massive difference between papering over a requirement for a business application and papering over a requirement for a mechanical specification.
The former might cost a customer money; the latter puts lives at risk.
There is always a chance it is, however without some deep knowledge on the reasons for the spec, its impossible to say why a spec exists in the first place.
Many of these large scale engineering specs are "take the worst possible situation you can ever think of and design it so that it can survive 1.3x of that". Yes it sounds stupid to the layman, but this is how you make shit that survives everything you toss at it.
Ignoring "dumb specifications" is the reason why SpaceX lost a payload. They used non aeronautical grade metal, which did not conform to the requirements for spaceflight, causing a mission failure.