The Canadian Red Cross has been fined €3,200 after pleading guilty to distributing blood tainted with HIV and hepatitis C in the 1980s.
The charity will also put aside €975,000 to pay for post-secondary scholarships for family members of those affected as well as a medical research project.
Dr Pierre Duplessis, secretary general of the Red Cross
The decades-old tainted blood scandal is considered one of the worst public health disasters in Canadian history.
More than 1,000 Canadians became infected with blood-borne HIV and up to 20,000 others contracted hepatitis C after receiving tainted blood products in the 1980s and early 1990s.
About 3,000 people had died by 1997 and the death toll has grown, but recent estimates were not available.
"(The) Canadian Red Cross Society is deeply sorry for the injury and death . . . for the suffering caused to families and loved ones of those who were harmed," said Dr Pierre Duplessis, secretary general of the Red Cross, told the court in southern Ontario.
"We accept responsibility through our plea for having distributed harmful products for those that rely on us for their health."
The public apology, which had been demanded by survivors of the victims, was played in a videotape statement to the Ontario Superior Court.
Federal prosecutor John Ayre said the fine was adequate given the Red Cross's status as a humanitarian organisation, noting it no longer engaged in blood collection or distribution.
The proceedings were separate from other charges against Dr Roger Perrault, former director of blood transfusion for the Red Cross. He is charged along with three other doctors and the US-based Armour Pharmaceutical Co.
They are accused of criminal negligence and endangering the public for allegedly allowing Armour's blood-clotting product, infected with HIV, to be given to haemophilia patients.
AP