EU sanctions: Public prosecutor’s workplace stops investigations towards billionaire Usmanov in alternate for a nice | EUROtoday

The Munich public prosecutor’s workplace has closed an investigation towards the Russian-Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov towards cost of a nice of ten million euros. The topic of the proceedings was the suspicion of two violations of the Foreign Trade Act.

According to the Munich public prosecutor’s workplace, Usmanov has already ordered the cost of the nice. The state is to obtain 8.5 million euros of the quantity, 1.5 million euros to the Bavarian Victim Support Foundation and the Bavarian State Association for Prison Welfare and Probation Services

Dismissal after paying a nice will not be an request for forgiveness; the presumption of innocence stays unaffected. The public prosecutor emphasizes {that a} nice doesn’t represent a nice or another penal-like sanction. Once the financial requirement has been met, a resumption of the investigation based mostly on the identical suspicion is dominated out.

The background to the authorized proceedings is the inclusion of Alisher Usmanov within the EU sanctions record in February 2022 following Russia’s large-scale assault on Ukraine. Since then, Usmanov’s funds and assets had been thought of “frozen” and needed to be reported to the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control.

The Munich public prosecutor’s workplace accused Usmanov of paying round 1.5 million euros by means of firms based mostly overseas in 2022 to observe two properties in Rottach-Egern and of not instantly reporting valuables to the accountable authorities. Usmanov’s legal professionals disputed each his connection to the businesses and valuables and the applicability of EU sanctions guidelines within the case.

Usmanov’s lawyer Joachim Steinhöfel criticized WELT’s legal reporting requirement for sanctioned individuals and pointed to vital constitutional considerations concerning the earlier regulation in Section 23a of the Foreign Trade Act. At the top of 2022, this regulation was repealed, however the reporting requirement was primarily continued as Section 10 of the Sanctions Enforcement Act. Accordingly, nationals and foreigners should instantly report funds and assets affected by EU sanctions to the accountable authority.

Legal specialists take into account the “compulsory self-disclosure” to be unconstitutional. The legal lawyer Kilian Wegner from the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) defined in his assertion for the Finance Committee in November 2022: An unrestricted reporting obligation violates the constitutionally anchored precept “nemo tenetur se ipsum accusare vel prodere”; nobody is obliged to betray or accuse themselves. The Federal Constitutional Court has “already decided several times” that obligatory data obligations that may result in self-incrimination are solely suitable with the structure if the individual involved is both granted the proper to refuse to supply data or it’s ensured that the compelled data can’t be used as proof in legal proceedings towards them.

Alisher Usmanov can already look again on some authorized successes within the context of EU sanctions. A raid on his property on Lake Tegernsee in 2022 was declared illegal by the Frankfurt am Main regional courtroom. Investigations into cash laundering towards Usmanov had been closed by the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor’s Office.

The businessman asserted injunctive aid towards quite a few media shops. The enterprise journal “Forbes” can not declare that Usmanov “acted as a straw man for Putin and solved his business problems.” ARD was banned from broadcasting the declare that Usmanov was concerned in a bribery scandal in fencing.