New Designations The US Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) has issued several new sanctions designations in response to the developing situation in relation to Ukraine, and has also issued several significant clarifications regarding the scope of US Ukraine-related sanctions. OFAC has designated United Shipbuilding Corporation, a Russian state-owned enterprise, as a Specially Designated National. […]

The new wave of sanctions from ‘Down Under’ targets 50 people and 11 companies. Russia responded by calling the move “counterproductive” and blacklisted Vladimir Yakunin, head of Russian Railways, said it’s a pity he won’t see the kangaroos in the wild. Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs made the matter public in a media release on […]

  The EU and US have both recently taken steps to respond to recent events in Ukraine. On 5 March 2014, the EU introduced an asset freeze applying to former President Yanukovych and other former government officials and persons associated with the former government. The UK has introduced domestic legislation criminalising breaches of this asset […]

This alert provides an overview of the sanctions that are currently in place as a result of events currently occurring in Ukraine. It covers the EU sanctions which are currently limited to asset freezes on Victor Yanukoviych, other officials of the former Ukrainian government and some of their close relatives and alleged associates. President Obama […]

More than 42,000 financial crimes involving millions of dollars in losses were uncovered in Russia in 2013, President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday. He gave no figure for the exact losses last year from financial crime, but said that more than 20 billion rubles ($554 million) in damages had been caused in the past three years. […]

An investigation has found that British companies laundered millions of pounds stolen from the Russian treasury in a £150m tax fraud, according to the Telegraph. According to the paper, £35m passed through the foreign accounts of 10 UK registered companies. The 2007 fraud has been linked with five deaths, including Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. The […]

7 Sources for finding out more about your business partner in Russia – There are several public sources that help due diligence when entering into transactions. Here we summarise those used most often. i. The Unified State Register of Legal Entities is maintained by the RF Federal Tax Service, which is responsible for registration of […]