The Federal Prosecutor’s Office has issued a press release announcing the arrest of an individual Alexander S on charges of exporting dual-use goods to military recipients in Russian in breach of EU sanctions.
Although the press release does not state as much, it is likely that this individual is the same as is already facing charges relating to earlier exports.
The arrest warrant alleges the export of dual-use high-quality machine tools to an end customer in the Russian defence sector.
We reported in an earlier post that an investigation had been opened in Germany in 2018 in relation to suspected unlawful chemical exports to Japan and United States.
Since then in February 2021 the Regional Court in Oldenburg had ruled that the prosecution of three individuals at VET Pharma Freisoythe GmbH could not proceed based on a technical issue with the implementation of the EU Anti-Torture Regulation into German law.
The prosecutor’s office appealed, and the Higher Regional Court has upheld that appeal and ordered the prosecution to proceed.
The judgment is available here.
The UK’s OFSI has published its Annual Report for 2020-2021.
OFSI notes that it received 132 reports of potential financial sanctions breaches.
Interestingly, OFSI declined to publish the usual annual figure of the value of the reported breaches noting that “the total value of potential breaches reported during a financial year can be disproportionately affected by a small number of transactions with a large value”.
Further to an earlier post, the German Federal Court of Justice has today upheld an earlier conviction of two individuals and a company for unlawful exports of assault rifles to Mexico.
The company, Heckler & Koch, had appealed the earlier judgment and the confiscation of its gross profits from the sales. The two convicted individuals had also appealed.
The Federal Court has upheld the earlier judgment finding that the company had falsified export licence applications to mask the final destination for the weapons.
Further to our earlier post, it has been reported today that the Higher Regional Court in Hamburg has sentenced two men to prison for supplying machine tools to a Russian arms company.
The first defendant received a sentence of three years and nine months. In addition, almost €8 million in profits from the sale of the machinery will be confiscated
The second defendant was sentenced to two years’ probation for aiding and abetting with a payment of €150,000 to secure that probation. A further €184,000 are to be confiscated.
It has been reported today that the Latvian authorities have conducted court-ordered raids on premises in Riga and elsewhere as part of the ongoing criminal investigation of seven individuals suspected of breaching the EU’s Russian sanctions.
Today the UK government announced compound penalties of £700,386.01 imposed for breaches of the UK’s export controls.
The announcement from the Export Control Joint Unit provides little detail, but there were 19 settlements in all with the individual penalties ranging from £1,000 to £211,250.
The exports were of dual-use goods and military goods.
This announcement is in line with the HMRC’s policy of entering into civil settlements using its compounding powers, and with anonymised publication of the details.
Denmark’s financial crimes unit on Wednesday announced charges against a Danish company suspected of violating EU sanctions on Syria by delivering large quantities of fuel to Russian warplanes there.
The 33 transactions, involving 172,000 tonnes of kerosene, carried out between 2015 and 2017, amounted to 647 million kroner (87 million euros, $102 million), according to the Danish State Prosecutor.
Danish media has reported the company as Dan-Bunkering. A holding company and the director of one of the companies involved are also being prosecuted.
Further to our earlier post, the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office has issued a press release confirming that charges have now been laid against two individuals – Alexander S. and Alexander O.
The allegations relate to the export of machine tool to a Russian state-owned arms company valued at €8 million between January 2016 and January 2018.
The customer is also said to be a designated person under EU regulation 269/2014.
Today, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority imposed a fine of £38,805,400 on Commerzbank.
The Penalty Notice can be found here.
The penalty reflected a 30% reduction from £54,007,800 to reflect cooperation by the bank.
The fine related to failings identified by the FCA in AML and sanctions screening and compliance.
