Managing Sanctions against Countries

Embargoes are economic sanctions imposed by individual states or communities of states on other states, political groups or individuals. Many of the embargoes globally in force are the result of decisions taken by the UN Security Council. Embargoes are intended to punish human rights violations, prevent the spread of political crises, fight terrorism or isolate criminal groups or individuals.

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 types of embargoes: total embargoes, partial embargoes, and 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, the embargo does allow for the supply of humanitarian goods in individual cases and subject to prior authorization.

Partial embargoes prohibit the import and/or export of certain goods or the provision of certain services, or make these activities subject to prior authorization. However, a partial embargo can also involve financial sanctions against specific individuals or groups.

A special form of partial embargo is the arms embargo. Arms embargoes apply only to weapons and armaments. Partial embargoes and arms embargoes may be imposed together.

The embargo check in SAP GTS is strictly country-specific. The products and the persons involved in the process are of no significance for the check. If a country is marked as an embargoed country, the system preventively blocks any document that contains a relevant business partner in this country. However, this block can be removed manually. SAP GTS therefore always enforces a case-by-case examination.

There are three ways of checking purchasing or sales processes for embargoes. The SAP Fiori launchpad provides the Manage Embargo Situations app for all three available options.

• In the event of a total embargo, you could just set the Embargo indicator to identify the country in question as an embargo country.

• If a partial embargo has been imposed on a country, you can link the corresponding legal regulation to the country code of the embargoed country and set the embargo indicator.

• To map partial embargoes in SAP GTS, you can also assign combinations of country of departure and country of destination to a legal regulation and set the embargo indicator, where applicable.

If documents have been blocked due to an embargo, you can release these documents manually using the Manage Blocked Documents app. You can use the Display Released Embargo Documents app to display a list of the documents released.