Row Man Gross-Gene wrote: ↑15 Mar 2023, 19:04
Thanks for posting. This has the potential to be bad for Haas (the company). If they're flouting the rules, I hope they are punished for it. Just a couple comments, I know that TV news is a visual medium and so they need pictures, but the existence of training or promotional videos (even recent ones) showing Haas machines in Russian factories doesn't mean they broke the law, those machines could have been there for quite some time. More compelling is the shipping evidence they mentioned, though I wonder if the shipments had been paid for prior the sanctions? I mean, if the payment was made before, but product shipped after, it's still bad, but I wonder if that's a legal loophole (obviously, in such a situation, they could have simply refunded the money rather than ship the product). I guess I'll stay tuned.
We have had a fairly quick response from Haas on that front, and they are denying that they have broken any sanctions with regards to Russia.
https://www.haascnc.com/about/response.html
Haas have stated that they used to sell machines to an independent distributor, Abamet Management, which would then re-sell those machines on to customers in Russia and Belarus. Haas have stated that, although the terms of the sanctions on Russia might well have permitted them to continue selling to Abamet Management, they cancelled their contract with Abamet Management on the 3rd March 2022 and have not sent any new machines or spare parts to Abamet since that date.
With regards to the shipment dates, Haas have stated that they were not responsible for shipping machines or spare parts. Their response is that "Abamet had possession, title, and control over a number of machines and spare parts it had acquired from Haas prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine" - in other words, they are saying it is Abamet, not Haas, that was responsible for shipping those goods.
It therefore appears that Haas's defence is along the lines of your suggestion - that Haas had sold machines and spare parts to Abamet prior to the invasion of Ukraine, but then cut their ties with Abamet when it was announced that sanctions were being put in place. Meanwhile, Abamet, having built up a large stockpile of machinery and spare parts prior to sanctions being announced, have taken advantage of the fact that the sanctions do not apply retrospectively to then ship those stockpiled goods over to Russia over the subsequent months.
With regards to the comment about "simply refunding the money" - it might not necessarily have been straightforward if Abamet used a Russian bank that has been cut off from the SWIFT transaction system due to sanctions.