March, 20, 2023
To whom it may concern,
The Economic Security Council of Ukraine is grateful to Haas Automation for the swift response to the PBS story dated March 14 regarding its activities in the Russian market. The Economic Security Council of Ukraine welcomes Haas Automation’s condemnation of the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, the statement by Haas Automation on its activities in Russia leaves many questions unanswered.
Therefore, we would like to reiterate our concerns and ask Haas Automation to provide a more detailed response regarding the topics broached. The arguments presented by the Economic Security Council of Ukraine are based on open-source research related to Haas’ activities in the Russian market. Thus, the Economic Security Council of Ukraine invites Haas Automation to cooperate with a view to clarifying the information available.
First of all, the Economic Security Council of Ukraine is aware of the specificity of Haas Automation's business model, relying upon authorised distributors, and Abamet company is one of them. According to the open sources, the cooperation between the two companies started before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and dates back to at least 2015. At the same time, Abamet has a long record of state procurement execution for the military and industrial complex, including those entities sanctioned after the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, which is publicly available. Given the fact that Abamet has been openly supplying the Russian military complex, we kindly ask Haas Automation to provide details upon its awareness of the end customers of its products and Abamet's activities in the Russian state procurement execution.
Secondly, our knowledge of the formal severance of relations between Abamet and Haas Automation stems exclusively from the announcements by Haas Automation. While Abamet continues to sell the machine tools, spare parts, and details under the Haas brand, and trade records show several purchases made after February 24, 2022, definitive evidence of terminated relations is required. In addition to the existing letter reaffirming their special relations shortly prior to the full-scale invasion (January 2022), any legal documents and proof of the terminated cooperation between Haas Automation and Abamet Group shall suffice.
Thirdly, the question of Haas-branded supplies after the full-scale invasion has risen out of openly accessible data and provides little knowledge about the circumstances and complications of trade relations between Haas Automation and Abamet. To clarify the timing and legal status of the purchases in the open trade records, we would kindly ask Haas Automation to provide a detailed analysis and paper trail of the said deliveries.
Moreover, the company’s commitment to certify and authorise every purchase made through the vast network of distributors is clear from the statement. However, Haas Automation admits that any Haas distributor worldwide might have supplied the 18 machine tools (“if any shipments of Haas manufactured machines or components occurred after March 3, 2022, such shipments were made, unbeknownst to Haas, by Abamet or one of Haas’ numerous other customers around the world”). Given that, we deem it desirable for Haas Automation to conduct an internal investigation on the purchases under the company’s brand made after the beginning of the full-scale invasion to prevent further violations of the company’s compliance and stance.
The Economic Security Council of Ukraine welcomes Haas's decision to terminate its Russian company’s sponsorship of the Haas Formula 1 racing team. It also avails itself of this opportunity to express its heartful gratitude to the government and people of the United States for the invaluable support provided for Ukrainians in these atrocious times. The Economic Security Council of Ukraine has never intended to deteriorate the reputation of Haas Automation – on the contrary, our primary mission is to deprive the Russian Federation of any means to continue this war which poses global security risks and disrupts all the foundations of the free world is built upon. Therefore, we aim to draw Haas’ attention to potential internal violations or sanctions evasion and work together to secure our shared values.
Economic Security Council of Ukraine
