Hope this helps others with regards to the ownership verification:
Bought this today on sale and was hit by that #### useless launcher's error message of ownership verification.
On said #### useless launcher un-link your steam account then launch the game again via steam.
This forces steam and ubisoft to connect and there I got a message confirming if I wanted to add Anno to my ubisoft library.
Piece of #### launcher, hope it helps others

Hope this helps others with regards to the ownership verification: Bought this today on sale and was hit by that #### useless launcher's error message of ownership verification. On said #### useless launcher un-link your steam account then launch the game again via steam. This forces steam and ubisoft to connect and there I got a message confirming if I wanted to add Anno to my ubisoft library. Piece of #### launcher, hope it helps others