Famous German firearms manufacturer Heckler & Koch, whose airsoft versions of its guns are big favorites amongst airsoft, just got received a hefty fine leveled against by the Stuttgart Court District four days ago. After a 10-month trial involving employees of the company, the company got fined US$4.2 million in sales to Mexico that violated the War Weapons Control Act.
According to DW.com, former CEO Peter B. was acquitted while two employees, Marianne B. and Ingo S., who do mainly administrative duties, were found guilty. The fine is the approximate value of the G36 rifles that were sold to Mexico at the time of their sale, which will result into an actual loss for the company if it pays the fine.
The two employees found guilty were given 17 and 22 months of suspended prison sentences. A total of five employees were charged with prosecutors pushing for jail sentences to three of them.
Germany has strict arms export laws, not allowing for weapons sales to strife-torn regions. In this case Heckler & Koch violated the War Weapons Control Act by selling more than 4,000 G36 assault rifles and ammo to a government buyer in Mexico. These rifle were sold in 16 batches from 2006 to 2009 with the the guns finding their way into Mexican states that are rife with murders and kidnappings and are in the list of restricted locations such as Chiapas, Chihuahua and Guerrero.
The guns are believed to have been used in the 2014 kidnapping and most likely murder of 43 students from a teachers college in Iguala, Guerrero. The criminal incident drew widespread condemnation internationally.
The case was pressed by Juergen Grasslin, a veteran activist connected to the Global Net — Stop The Arms Trade NGO who brought the suit against H&K in 2010 and also blamed the German government’s failure in the oversight of weapons sales. He was actually surprised at the fine, thinking that it will only be based on the profits from the sale.
Here is the initial reaction of H&K as posted at their website:
We will examine today’s verdict carefully. We can however not understand the Court’s decision that we should not only forfeit the profit generated on the Mexico business but instead forfeit the entire sales price, despite the fact that none of the directors committed an offence. This should have been taken into account. In addition, the Court could have taken account in its verdict of the fact that from the beginning, Heckler & Koch has supported the proceedings and the active investigation and fully cooperated with the public prosecutor. This included the company initiating a comprehensive special investigation and providing the prosecutor with the detailed, over 100 pages long, report of this.
It is believed that the fine will have an impact on the finances of the company which has been experiencing financial difficulties. The company has over 700 employees located in Germany, France, the UK and the USA.