Included in the annual criminal prosecution statistics for Austria in 2020 is the figure that the authorities there have secured 4 convictions for breaches of section 7 the Austrian “War Materials Law”, and 9 convictions over all.
No detail is published on the nature of the offending, the identity of the offenders, or the sentences imposed.
The UK’s HM Revenue and Customs has today announced the imposition of 10 compound penalties in relation to failures to comply with the UK’s export control regulations for dual-use and military goods. The fines were imposed between March and November 2021.
HMRC’s Notice to Exporters can be found here.
In line with HMRC’s standard practice the compound penalties are anonymised and of low value, with little information made available. The information provided is supplied below.
Continue reading “UK’s HMRC imposes 10 fines for export control violations”
The German Federal Court of Justice has upheld the confiscation of €11 million imposed on Sig Sauer for unlicensed exports of small arms to Colombia.
See our earlier post, for the original fine from 2019.
The exports were made as part fulfilment of a contract by the US government to supply weapons to the Colombian police, but the necessary export licences were not obtained from the German authorities.
The judgment is available here.
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.
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.
It has been reported today that the Maltese authorities have charged five individuals with breaching the EU sanctions against Libya.
Only one individual was named – James Fenech.
The case relates to the use of military-grade inflatable vessels allegedly used to move military personnel into, and out of, Libya.
The court has also ordered that the accounts of the companies involved be frozen.
The Higher Regional Court of Hamburg has today sentenced a man to seven years in jail for exports to Russian in breach of EU sanctions.
Our earlier post had outlined that the man was charged with exports of chemicals and machinery to Russia which could be used in the manufacture of military rockets. False documentation had been created in an attempt to mask the exports.
The Austrian annual criminal statistics reveal 4 convictions for the year 2018 for breaches of section 7 the “War Materials Law”. Two other convictions for other offences were obtained in the year.
No information was published on the nature of the offending, the identity of the offenders or the sentences.
The Latvian Intelligence Services have announced a series of five raids in Riga and elsewhere relating to “illegal arms trade, violation of sanctions determined by international organisations” and money laundering.
As stated: “The information acquired during the investigation indicates that the group of persons has illicitly supplied a large number of arms to African countries that are subject to the sanctions determined by the UN and the EU. The accomplishment of illicit contracts was followed by laundering of criminally acquired financial resources”.
The release does not specify the African country.
