It will be easier for small businesses to appeal against blocking under the anti-money laundering law

The Ministry of Finance and Rosfinmonitoring were instructed to simplify the appeal by entrepreneurs of blocking of funds due to violation of anti-money laundering legislation. This instruction was given by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin following the results of a strategic session on the development of SMEs in September (Vedomosti has the text of the document). The new procedure will be prepared jointly with the Central Bank: it is the Bank of Russia that decides which risk group entrepreneurs belong to: “red”, which actually means blocking transactions on the account, “yellow” or “green”. The Ministry of Finance and Rosfinmonitoring need to prepare changes to regulatory legal acts that would simplify the appeal of the inclusion of entrepreneurs in the “red” list, the order specifies.

A representative of the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers confirmed the information and clarified that the measure is considered as part of a package of support for SMEs. A representative of the Ministry of Finance forwarded questions to the Central Bank and Rosfinmonitoring. The press service of the latter stated that they are working together with the Bank of Russia on “legislative changes in order to regulate the procedure for appealing the classification of legal entities as a high risk of conducting suspicious transactions.” At the moment, discussions are underway, the final decision has not yet been made, Rosfinmonitoring clarified. In addition, the department supports the posting on the official website of the Bank of Russia of information about legal entities and individual entrepreneurs classified as high risk. A representative of the regulator did not respond to a request.