The Scottish Rugby Union has been fined £70,000 over comments made ahead of the typhoon-threatened World Cup defeat to hosts Japan.
SRU chief-executive Mark Dodson threatened legal action and insisted he would not allow Scotland to become "collateral damage" over the potential cancellation of the decisive fixture in October.
The match was threatened by Typhoon Hagibis - which claimed almost 100 lives - and, under tournament rules, would not have been rescheduled, resulting in automatic elimination for the Gregor Townsend 's side.
The fixture eventually went ahead, with Japan winning 28-21, but World Rugby later charged the SRU with bringing the game into disrepute.
The charge has been officially upheld, a financial penalty handed down and the Scottish governing body have been ordered to issue a "meaningful apology".
A second charge relating to separate interviews given by an SRU spokesperson and lawyer Nick De Marco were dropped.
A World Rugby statement said: "World Rugby strongly believed the comments, which suggested an unfair and disorganised treatment of all teams, to be inappropriate and ill-judged at a time when Japan was preparing for the largest and most destructive typhoon in decades.
"The international federation believed that such comments brought the game into disrepute, not only in relation to World Rugby’s handling of an extraordinary situation, but also in the message that it sent to the Japanese people.
"Having considered all the evidence, including submissions by World Rugby and the SRU, the committee determined in respect of the first charge that comments attributed to Mark Dodson amounted to misconduct and brought the game into disrepute.
"In respect of the second charge, the available evidence was insufficient for the committee to be satisfied on the balance of probabilities as to the source of the offending remarks and therefore it dismissed the charge."
Scotland lost two of their four fixtures in Pool A, going down to Ireland and Japan, with wins over Russia and Samoa not enough to secure progress.
