How is the unfreezing of Russian funds going now?
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Unfreezing of assets in Euroclear may take several years. Lawyers representing the interests of the injured Russians told Kommersant FM how the process has changed over the year. The Belgian Ministry of Finance, according to them, has expanded the number of employees who must consider applications for unblocking. However, every day the department receives thousands of emails with questions, clarifications and requests to reconsider decisions, so the process will drag on for several years. What do Russians face in trying to regain access to assets? Ivan Yakunin will tell you.
The Belgian Treasury allocated 20 people to process applications. This unit will have to consider 78 thousand requests from Russians. Simple calculations show that this is 3.9 thousand cases for each manager. If each of them processes at least 10 requests a day with fantastic speed, although there are doubts about this, then, taking into account weekends, the process will drag on for a year and a half.
In reality, Kommersant FM’s interlocutors talk about twice as much time. It is impossible to predict who will be lucky and who will not, BGP Litigation partner Sergey Glandin shares his experience: “There is more uncertainty regarding the timing. Recently submitted an application. Two weeks later a message arrived with the assignment of an incoming number. I have applications that we submitted before January 7, 2023. For one, there is still no assigned incoming number, and for the second there is, but there is no answer yet. There’s a roulette here.”
Other lawyers confirm that the Treasury does not seem to have a system in place for review. There are cases when a Russian with an EU passport applied for unlocking, but this did not speed up the process in any way. Clients without such documents managed to get approval faster. We have to wait up to 11 months for answers, says Tatyana Neveeva, senior partner at Verba Legal. And the process is still delayed if the regulator suddenly makes a mistake in the documents, notes Kommersant FM’s interlocutor:
“It happens that the assets and chain are defined incorrectly. We are asking for an adjustment as it is clear that Euroclear will not transfer. We often encountered this problem: the receiving bank was indicated in the application, but after receiving a license, it no longer wants to accept assets for one reason or another. For example, its compliance policy has changed. We have to again contact the Ministry of Finance and ask to adjust the license, and this, unfortunately, causes delays.”
Kommersant FM’s interlocutors say that there are fewer refusals. Largely because investors began to fill out applications more responsibly. For example, the Treasury requires that unlocked assets do not leave the European Union. Previously, Russians ignored this rule and asked to transfer papers to the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and Kazakhstan. Belgium did not cooperate, and they stopped doing this. This is if we talk about individuals. Professional market participants have more problems, shares Delcredere Bar Association partner Andrey Ryabinin:
“These are mostly refusals. The Treasury is not in the mood to unlock any large portfolios of both its own assets and those of clients. The reasons are very different, even erroneous, when some documents were attached as part of the application, but the Treasury indicates that they were not there. The most common reason for refusal is the lack of accounts in the European Union. Here, professional participants, as a rule, have objective difficulties.”
As a result, says Andrey Ryabinin, collective applications are stalled, and investors are better off acting on their own. The window of opportunity has not yet closed: the statute of limitations is three years and is counted from the moment NSD and Euroclear broke off relations. Thus, the deadline is set at March 2025.
Everything is clear with us – Telegram channel “Kommersant FM”.
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