I am trying to work out the VAT liabilities for the following transaction that I am managing/processing. Here is the scenario:

We are a UK-registered company and we buy all our supplies from our German parent company, who manufacture stainless steel vessels (for the drinks industry etc.). We normally buy the vessels from our German parent company and ship direct to our UK customers, and no VAT is charged to us from our German company as it is an intra-EU supply (acquisition) and they have our GB VAT number.

In this instance, our UK customer is working on behalf of their customer in Nairobi, Kenya. We, as a UK company, have sold them (another UK company) a number of vessels, that they are then selling to their Kenyan customer. Therefore we have 4 business entities involved in this transaction:

'A': our German parent company (manufacturer),

'B': us in the UK

'C': our customer in the UK

'D': our customer's customer in Nairobi

Our parent company (A) has sold us the vessels ex-works. We (B) have arranged transport and shipping DIRECT from 'A' in Germany to the customer's customer in Nairobi (D), but we will be invoicing our customer (C). 

My questions are:

1) should our parent company charge us German VAT for the vessels? They are a direct export from Germany, but we were responsible for their collection and export. Bear in mind that we also have a DE VAT number, so cannot claim the VAT back from German under the refund scheme (we can however claim it back using our DE VAT number, but this is a painful process).

2) should we (B) charge VAT to our UK customer (C)? Bear in mind the goods never entered the UK at all.

Help!