Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, major Western countries have imposed a series of sanctions on Moscow, preventing its banks from making international payments and freezing Russian assets abroad..
The Kremlin estimates that more than $16 billion in foreign investments belonging to Russian citizens are still stuck abroad..
Russia responded in kind by seizing assets belonging to foreign investors and companies using so-called “Type C” accounts“.
The decree allows Russians to exchange their assets or securities frozen abroad, with a value of up to 100,000 rubles (about a thousand dollars), with funds from these accounts through the use of an optional mechanism..
The owner of the Type C account, which is of course a foreign company, will have the option to acquire the shares that the Russian investor owned abroad.
But there is no guarantee of cooperation from financial services companies such as ClearStream or Euroclear, which conduct the clearing.
Dozens of Western companies withdrew from Russia after the war or sold their assets there to avoid being subject to sanctions.
The Kremlin has also prevented foreign companies from receiving the money they make from their sales, and in some cases companies have been taken over.
In July, Russia seized local companies affiliated with the French company Danone, in addition to the beer manufacturer Carlsberg, months after imposing the same measure on the German companies Uniper and Finnish Fortum..
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