Commercial and intermediary activities

If you or your business conduct commercial and intermediary activities involving military equipment, dual-use items, or other embargoed goods, you must observe certain authorisation requirements or prohibitions in Germany.

You or your business are affected by these provisions if you or your business are domiciled in Germany or in an EU Member State. The authorisation requirements or prohibitions concern intermediary or trade activities involving goods that are in a third country (non-EU country) and that are intended for another third country (non-EU country). It is irrelevant that at no point are the goods moved into or through either German economic territory or Community territory.

Under legal aspects, the following three categories accommodate such goods:

1. authorisation requirements for commercial and intermediary activities involving military equipment
2. authorisation requirements for commercial and intermediary activities involving dual-use goods
3. authorisation requirements or bans for embargoed goods

The authorisation process

The application for the authorisation of commercial and intermediary activities must be sent to the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control. The application must include, in particular, the following information:

• a description of the goods, stating their customs export code number,
• technical documents, technical data, or brochures so that the goods can be classified,
• the names of the seller and the purchaser,
• the purchasing country and the country of destination, and
• details of the end use of the goods.

Any available contract documents and purchase orders should be included.

Under certain circumstances procedural simplifications may apply (see General Authorisation No 20 for commercial and intermediary activities (Allgemeine Genehmigung Nummer 20 für Handels- und Vermittlungsgeschäfte)). If so, there is no need to make a written application.

Procedures in cases of infringement

You should be aware that an infringement of the authorisation requirements above mentioned is punishable as a criminal offence under Section 18 of the German Foreign Trade and Payments Act (Außenwirtschaftsgesetz) and/or under Section 17 of that Act in conjunction with Section 80 of the German Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance (Außenwirtschaftsverordnung).