When the Federal Criminal Police Office announced in mid-April that the super yacht dilbar not leaving the port of Hamburg for the time being due to the EU sanctions against Russia, that was a great success for the investigators. They had managed to unravel the complicated network of owners surrounding the 156-meter-long ship – with the result that the sister of the Kremlin-loyal oligarch Alisher Usmanov was finally chosen as the owner. But that is on the EU sanctions list that was drawn up because of the Russian attack on Ukraine.
To make it easier for investigators to implement sanctions that have been decided on, the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economic Affairs have agreed on extensive reforms. A task force has been in place since mid-March which, among other things, is intended to coordinate the cooperation of all responsible bodies in Germany and ensure the necessary exchange of information. Now, however, the somewhat unwieldy-sounding “Sanctions Enforcement Act” is intended to bring decisive progress.
Behind this is a legislative package that is aimed on the one hand at short-term improvements for the “effective operational implementation of the sanctions”. On the other hand, the position of the investigators in matters of sanction enforcement should be improved structurally and in the longer term. Therefore, legislative projects are planned in two stages: A Sanctions Enforcement Act I and a Sanctions Enforcement Act II. The first has now been put to the vote by the two departments and, according to government circles, should be passed by the Bundestag before the summer break. The draft for the second package is expected to be launched later this year.
The authorities should be able to exchange data more easily
It is envisaged that the competent authorities “can access existing, confidential administrative information to the extent necessary”, as stated in a paper. Gaps in responsibility should also be avoided. The authorities should also be able to exchange necessary data more easily with each other; the transmission of data from the Bundesbank to the financial supervisory authority Bafin is given as an example.
It should also be possible in the future to sell assets like that dilbar secure until it is clear who they belong to. Because that is often the problem: If nested company constructs obscure the owner, it is hardly possible to freeze assets. The federal government is therefore hoping for something from the new “reporting obligations, which are subject to penalties and fines”: Sanctioned persons should then be obliged to provide information about their assets.
In the longer term, responsibilities are to be streamlined, among other things, with a central coordination office for enforcing sanctions. A national register for “assets of unclear origin” and a whistleblower office are also planned; just like an independent administrative procedure for the “clarification of assets of unclear origin”. So far, it has apparently often been a problem that there is no independent legal basis for this.