Maintaining Embargoes and Check Settings

Many countries have imposed embargoes on a number of individual countries, political groups, and natural or legal persons. These embargoes are often based on UN Security Council resolutions. An embargo prohibits trade with the state, group, or person in question. In many cases, capital transactions with and providing certain services to the state, group, or person in question are also prohibited. The financial assets of the affected party can be frozen.

There are basically three kinds of embargoes:

• Total embargoes

• Partial embargoes

• Arms embargoes

A total embargo prohibits any kind of trade with the country in question. This type of embargo usually also includes services and financial transactions. In certain circumstances, this type of embargo does allow for the supply of humanitarian goods in individual cases and subject to authorization.

A partial embargo is intended to prohibit trade in specific goods only. These goods are explicitly listed in the corresponding legal regulation. Arms embargoes, on the other hand, apply only to armaments.

You always enter country-specific embargoes in SAP GTS as master data using the Manage Embargo Situations app. You can choose between three differentiation levels:

• Blanket identification of a country as an embargoed country

• Identification of a country as an embargoed country for a specific legal regulation

• Identification of a country as an embargoed country in relation to another country for a specific legal regulation

If you decide on the first level, SAP GTS blocks every customs document with a check-relevant document partner in the embargo country without exception. This form of master data maintenance is therefore only applicable for embargoes with global reach.

However, even embargoes based on Security Council resolutions do not automatically apply in United Nations member states. Resolutions must first be transposed into national law or, in the case of the EU, supranational law. Therefore, it makes sense to differentiate according to legal basis in SAP GTS not only when defining legal regulations, but also when maintaining master data.

In most cases, the identification of a country as an embargoed country is sufficiently differentiated at the level of a specific legal regulation. If a country has unilaterally imposed an embargo on another country, the third option for master data maintenance is suitable.

You can find the Manage Embargo Situations in the SAP Fiori launchpad in the Compliance space on the Embargo page. In the app, you can choose between all three embargo maintenance variants.

Setting up the embargo check requires little effort in relation to the configuration of the other two application areas of Compliance Management. The legal regulation of the delivery Customizing EMBUN (Embargo - United Nations) can be used as a template if required (menu path: SAP Global Trade Services, edition for SAP HANA → Compliance Management → Embargo Checks → Control Settings for Embargo Check). You must make up some basic decisions in advance:

• Which partner functions should be included in the embargo check?

• Do you want to inform employees of a document block via e-mail?

• If you are also using Customs Management: Should the incompleteness check in customs declarations react to an embargo situation with a warning message or an error message?

If you want SAP GTS to inform users of a document block due to the embargo check via e-mail, you use the Maintain User Groups transaction (transaction code SUGR) to create user groups for notification control.

In the next step, you assign the user group to a combination of foreign trade organization and legal regulation (Assignment of User Groups to Legal Regulation/Foreign Trade Org. view, transaction code /SAPSLL/USGR01). The e-mails are sent using SAPconnect (transaction code SCOT).