In the dispute over a new assault rifle for the Bundeswehr, the Thuringian arms company CG Haenel sees no reason to destroy all of the CR223 semi-automatic weapons that have been delivered.

The several thousand long guns that were delivered to police forces in the Free State of Saxony and Hamburg, among others, are mainly a model that has been manufactured since 2018 and is not affected by the recent judgment of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court.

Last week, the court ordered the weapons to be confiscated and destroyed.

Peter Carstens

Political correspondent in Berlin

  • Follow I follow

Haenel explains that a different variant was sold for most of the CR223 weapons.

Haenel had already been excluded from the competition for the Bundeswehr's new assault rifle the year before last because of the patent problem.

In June, the higher regional court had certified the Thuringian subsidiary of an armaments company from Abu Dhabi as “serious professional misconduct”.

"Neither manufactured nor distributed"

Then the Higher Regional Court in Düsseldorf sentenced the company before the turn of the year and found: "The CR223 rifle infringes patent rights".

It may “neither be manufactured nor sold”.

In addition, the court ordered the company to "destroy all guns still in its possession" and to ask commercial customers to return them, in return for compensation.

In addition, the competitor and owner of patent rights, Heckler & Koch, could assert claims for damages.

While the court did not differentiate between variants of the rifle in its notice, Haenel emphasizes the differentiation between the models charged with the company's breach of law and those manufactured since April 2018.

According to Haenel, the patent infringement concerns "a few exceptions" to the rifles used by the police.

Saxony's Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU) said that the Free State would neither have to destroy its approximately 2,200 CR223 rifles nor replace them without replacement, and that the police would remain operational at all times.

A thorough examination of the verdict is still pending.