Von: Steffen Ebert <Steffen.Ebert@nord-stream2.com>
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 19. Dezember 2019 10:45

An: Schwesig, Manuela

Cc: Geue, Heiko Dr.; Pegel, Christian

Betreff: Brief Senator Cruz an Allseas

Anlagen: 2019.12.18 Letter to Allseas CEO.pdf
Kennzeichnung: Zur Nachverfolgung

Kennzeichnungsstatus: Erledigt

Sehr geehrte Frau Ministerpräsidentin,
vielen Dank für Ihre klare Position zu den US-Sanktionen gegen das Nord Stream 2-Projekt.

Anbei zu Ihrer Info das Schreiben des Senators Ted Cruz an die Firma Allseas mit der Aufforderung, die
Verlegearbeiten der beiden Schiffe Allseas und Pioneering Spirit sofort einzustellen.

Koloniale Drohungen in Perfektion. Er ignoriert mit der Forderung nach sofortigem Abzug bewusst die in seinem
eigenen Gesetz festgeschriebene Abwicklungsperiode.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Steffen. Ebert

Advisor to Nord Stream 2
Communications Manager Germany

Mobile +49 1520 456 80 53 (D)
Mobile +41 79 536 67 90 (CH)

steffen.ebert@nord-stream2.com
www.nord-stream2.com

For latest updates, follow Nord Stream 2 AG on twitter: @NordStream2

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Anited States Denate

WASHINGTON, DC 20510

December 18, 2019

Edward Heerema

Chief Executive Officer, Allseas Group
Route de Pra de Plan 18, Case Postale 411
1618 Chätel-Saint-Denis

Switzerland

Dear Mr. Heerema,

This week, President Trump will sign into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)
for Fiscal Year 2020. Section 7503 of that Act mandates that the President impose broad sanctions
on foreign persons or companies involved in providing vessels for the installation of deep-sea
pipeline for the Nord Stream 2 project. As of his signature, those activities are instantaneously
subject to the full force of those sanctions.

This letter is to put you, your employees, your company, and your shareholders on formal legal
notice. This legislation was passed specifically to immediately halt your company’s work on Nord
Stream 2. The only responsible course of action is for Allseas Group S.A. and its employees to
stop Nord Stream 2 activities immediately.

We understand that Russia is paying Allseas a very substantial amount of money to complete the
Nord Stream 2 pipeline. However, the consequences of your company continuing to do the work—
for even a single day after the President signs the sanctions legislation— would expose your
company to crushing and potentially fatal legal and economic sanctions.

Your contract surely contains an avenue to withdraw in the event regulations or sanctions prevent
completion of the pipeline; with the passage ofthe NDAA, you have no reasonable choice but to
exercise that avenue and immediately halt installing deep-sea pipeline for the Nord Stream 2
project.

Section 7503 was the product of almost a year of bipartisan, bicameral, and interbranch efforts
aimed at immediately stopping the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. It requires the
President to report on and impose sanctions against individuals and companies that have “sold,
leased, or provided” vessels that “engaged in pipe-laying at depths of 100 feet or more below sea
level for the construction of the Nord Stream.2 pipeline project.” There is no discretion. It also
mandates sanctions against foreign persons or companies that seek to circumvent those
prohibitions by “facilitat[ing] deceptive or structured transactions to provide those vessels for the
construction” of the pipeline.

The prohibitions are immediate, and the sanctions are mandatory. Prohibited activities became
sanctionable “beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act,” i.e. when the President signs
the NDAA, and the “the President shall” designate violators.

Under the sanctions in Sec. 7503, violators will be fully cut off from the United States and have
any and all assets within the U.S. blocked for 5 years. Any individual designated will be denied
the issuance of a visa required for admission 10 the U.S, and will have any current visa or entry
documentation revoked. Moreover, for both individuals and companies, the President is required
to exercise all powers granted to him by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50
U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) “to block and prohibit al! transactions in all property and interests in property”
to ihe exient they “are in the United States, come within the United States, or come within the
possession or control ofa United States person.”

Allseas has several vessels that, according to materials published by the Nord Stream 2 project,
are engaged in the project: the construction vessel Pioneering Spirit (IMO: 9593505, MMSI:
249110000, Call Sign: 9HA4112), the pipelay vessel Solitaire (IMO: 7129049, MMSI:
249118000, Call Sign: 9HA4114), and the pipelay vessel Audacia (MO: 9305130, MMSI:

-.. 249117000, Call Sign: 9HA4111). The Pioneering Spirit and Solitaire are currently in the Baltic

Sea, and at least the Pioneering Spirüt is engaged in deep-sea pipe-laying activities that are now
sanctionable.

If you violate the sanctions legislation, and your vessels enter U.S. jurisdiction, those vessels will
become frozen assets.

Allseas and its key personnel who knowingly sell, lease, or provide those vessels for the Nord
Stream 2 project will be sanctioned ifthose activities do not cease immediately. For the next half
decade your company and those personnel will be entirely barred from the U.S. In the meantime,
any transactions they attempt to conduct with anyone who is in the U.S. or using the U.S. financial
system will be blocked. Moreover, all property you have within our Jurisdietion will be frozen,
including assets related to Allseas USA headquartered in Houston, TX, any financial assets in U.S.
banks, and any physical vesseis or materials owned by Allseas that come into the U.S,

It is important to reemphasize the immediacy required by Sec, 7503, because this aspect of the
legislation has been broadly misunderstood and misreported. In two months, the President will
report io Congress if Allseas ceased engaging in sanctionable activities and, if you did not, you
will be sanctioned. Although the report is due in 60 days, your legal exposure is immediate Jrom
the moment of signing.

To be sure, there is a 30-day “wind-down“ period for which the President has the option of not’
imposing sanctions, but to exercise that option the President must certify to Congress Ihat Allseas
“engaged in good faith efforts to wind down operations.” Rushing to finish the Nord Stream 2
project over that time would foreclose the possibility of that certification.

If you were to attempt to finish the pipeline in the next 30 days, you would devastate your
shareholders’ value and destroy the future financial viability of your company. And, you would
surely face billions of dollars in shareholder derivative suits for your breach of fiduciary duty.

You face a binary choice: stop NOW, and leave the Pipeline unfinished (the express intention of
the sanctions legislation, which we authored), or make a toolish attempt to rush to complete the
pipeline and risk putting your company out of business forever,

The U.S. government knows that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is near completion and considers ita
grave threat to European energy security and American national security. Top officials from the
State and Treasury Departments have repeatedly emphasized the gravity of those threats and
sought to forestall them. Sec. 7503 represents a whole-of-government approach to ensuring that
the pipeline remains uncompleted and those threats are never realized.

It's time for the Pioneering Spirit and Solitaire to find other waters in which to sail.

 

Sincerely,
Ted Cruz
United States Senator
gut The Honorable Steven T. Mnuchin, Secretary ofthe Treasury

The Honorable Michael Pompeo, Secretary of State
The Honorable Dan Brouillette, Secretary of Energy