Status: 07/01/2021 4:44 a.m.
The weapons manufacturer Sig Sauer illegally shipped 38,000 pistols to Colombia via the USA. Today the BGH decides: does the company now have to surrender the proceeds of the business?
From Klaus Hempel,
ARD legal editors
Pistols from the German gunsmith Sig Sauer are considered to be of particularly high quality and reliable. They are popular with military and police units – worldwide. This also applies to pistols of the 2022 type, which landed in Colombia a few years ago, although there was civil war there. Arms exports there were not permitted under German law.
In order to do business with Colombia, Sig Sauer came up with something: The Schleswig-Holstein company based in Eckernförde initially obtained an export license for delivery to the USA for 38,000 pistols. The pistols were then delivered to the US subsidiary Sig Sauer Inc. From there, the firearms were sent directly to the Colombian National Police.
Manager condemned, proceeds should be confiscated
In 2019, the Kiel Regional Court sentenced three former managers of the group to probation and fines. According to the judges, the defendants had deliberately chosen the detour via the USA and thus violated the Foreign Trade Act. These judgments are already final.
At the same time, the court ordered that the revenue of around eleven million euros be collected and paid to the treasury. Three companies in the group concerned appealed against the collection of the money to the Federal Court of Justice. They are of the opinion that the arms deliveries could also have been approved as a re-export to Colombia.
A ruling by the Federal Court of Justice at the end of March this year makes it clear that weapons manufacturers must expect the proceeds of illegal exports to be confiscated: At that time, the Heckler & Koch company was denounced by the third criminal panel, which will now also decide on the revision of Sig Sauer, for illegal actions Assault rifle exports to Mexico sentenced to pay full sales.
Further investigations against Sig Sauer
In the meantime, Sig Sauer has stopped production in Eckernförde in Schleswig-Holstein and relocated it to the USA. This was justified with the disadvantages of the location, which would have made the economic production of weapons in Germany impossible. However, it could happen that managers of the group have to answer to court again in Germany.
The Kiel public prosecutor’s office has been investigating new allegations since April 2020. According to research by Südwestrundfunk, the company is said to have also delivered weapons to Mexico without the exports being approved by the federal government.
File number: 3 StR 518/19