PARIS — The
deployment of unprecedented sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine war has
left companies with a complex legal minefield to navigate, prompting them to
hire more lawyers to avoid costly missteps.
اضافة اعلان
The EU alone is
inching towards its sixth sanctions package, while the US, Britain, Japan, and
even traditionally neutral Switzerland have imposed restrictions on trade with
Russia.
Unprecedented in
their scale and speed, Western measures against Moscow have ranged from
freezing assets to export bans on strategic products like semiconductors and
financial sanctions.
Alex Zuck, managing
director for product strategy at Moody’s Analytics, said the company in recent
weeks had spoken to “hundreds” of compliance executives “struggling with and
thinking about the sanctions exposure”.
Some companies have
to expand their legal teams in response to the ever-shifting landscape, said a
source in the European banking industry.
“There is a layer
of complexity exacerbated by the fact that we get new sets of sanctions almost
every week,” the source said.
Conforming to the
sanctions is even tougher because Russia had been closely integrated into the
world economy and was seen as a promising market by many Western businesses.
Those firms are now
on a legal “war footing”, said Elodie Valette, a lawyer at Bryan Cave Leighton
Paisner, which aids companies in the car manufacturing and energy industries,
among others.
“They set up teams
which sometimes manage almost only that because, for some, their daily activity
was put in a difficult position,” she told AFP.
Suddenly inundated
with work, lawyers scrambled to examine the sanctions, categorize them by
activity and invite clients to make audits as they found themselves “a little
lost” at the start, she added.
“Now the companies
are starting to see how they can strengthen their program for the future,” said
Zuck.
“I don’t believe
many people think there will be an abrupt end to the sanctions — they are going
to last, probably increase.”
The call to
economic arms began with the outbreak of war in late February, with the first
measures obliging companies to compile an inventory of their Russian partners.
Business relations
have to be scrutinized individually and painstakingly, including a review of
clients, providers and partners, to see who really lies behind Russian structures.
“You need to go to
the IT systems and conduct investigations. Having a name is just the tip of the
iceberg, you need to find all the connections and the links,” the banking
source said.
Zuck said the task
is tricky as the US and EU, for example, have different definitions of the
level of control a Russian entity needs to have to trigger sanctions.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
