On the morning of Tuesday April 29, the EU added 15 additional individuals to the list of persons designated under the EU sanctions relating to Ukraine. These include several Russian government ministers and officials (such as the Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Dmitry Kozak, and the Minister for Crimean Affairs, Oleg Savelyev) who were listed […]

  Since March the US Commerce and State Departments have suspended their processing of applications seeking a US government license or authorization to export to Russia goods, software, technology or defense-related services.   On April 28, the Commerce and State Departments modified this partial export embargo on Russia. Going forward, they will only deny applications […]

The US sanctions relating to Ukraine and Russia are primarily directed at US persons. Non-US persons are not directly required to comply with the sanctions, so long as the relevant transaction and parties involved do not have any US nexus. If US individuals or companies, or any person within the United States is involved in […]

1.On Monday April 28, the US imposed sanctions on – an additional 7 Russian individuals and – 17 Russian or Russian-owned companies. 2.All of these persons were added to the primary US sanctions list, the list of specially designated nationals, or ‘SDN’ list. 3.US persons are prohibited from dealing with any SDN, or any entity […]

Amid continued unrest and scattered reports of violence in eastern and southern Ukraine, the US and EU have moved to impose additional sanctions on Russian persons. As with the prior rounds, the new designations of Russian individuals and companies are intended to put further pressure on the Russian leadership to take action to de-escalate tensions […]

28 April 2014 – The Director of the SFO has opened a criminal investigation into possible money laundering arising from suspicions of corruption in Ukraine. The SFO has obtained a restraint order freezing approximately $23m of assets in the UK in connection with this case. For reasons of confidentiality the SFO said no more. Notes […]

On 11 April 2014, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) announced that it had listed as SDNs seven Crimean-based individuals and also one entity, Chernomorneftegaz, for contributing to the situation in Ukraine. The names of the SDNs are listed here. More recently, President Obama indicated at a press conference on […]

The Seychelles Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has confirmed that it is actively conducting an investigation into the alleged use of offshore corporate structures in Seychelles to launder the proceeds of corruption by members of the former Ukrainian government. These allegations which are internationally tarnishing Seychelles’ reputation have appeared in well-known international media sources such as […]