The Belgian Minister of Finance has issued a statement regarding Belgian efforts to enforce the EU’s sanctions against Russia.
Included, is confirmation that 19 reports have been referred to the public prosecutor’s office, and that a further 15 such other such reports are being prepared.
No further information on the nature of the alleged offending was included.
It is being reported that the Danish Business Authority has referred two cases to the police for potential further action.
This is further to our earlier post relating to the commencement of the investigations.
Both cases relate to the continuation of operations by designated Russian organisations in Denmark.
These two police investigations add the the 12 already known to have been commenced (see our earlier post).
The Spanish Guardia Civil has today arrested a British national in response to an extradition request by the US authorities.
The man, Richard Masters, is alleged to have assisted in the contravention of sanctions as part of the management and operation of the yacht the M/Y Tango on behalf of sanctioned Russian Viktor Vekselberg.
The yacht has also been seized.
It is being reported that the Danish Business Authority is investigating whether the so-called “Russia House” in Copenhagen, which is a designated person under the EU’s sanctions has been breaching the asset freeze imposed upon it.
This follows an earlier report that the Danish Business Authority was also investigating possible breaches by Rossotrudnichestvo.
The French Ministry of Finance has today announced an investigation into the sanctions compliance practices of estate agencies in the region of Alpes-Maritimes.
A preliminary investigation is said to have revealed that 60% were not conducting sanctions screening.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has issued a Final Notice to Al Rayan Bank PLC in relation to its failings with customer due diligence, including a lack of due diligence documentation for customers linked to sanctioned countries, or the lack of appropriate enhanced due diligence.
The bank was fined £4,023,600.
On an appeal from an earlier conviction for transferring €245 in breach of the EU’s sanctions against ISIS and Al Qaeda, the Dutch Supreme Court has ruled that a conviction does not require a showing of any intention to breach the sanctions.
Completion of the transfer itself is enough to complete the offence.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has issued a Final Notice against Guaranty Trust Bank (UK) Limited.
The fine was £7,671,800.
The reported failings include a lack of screening against OFSI’s Consolidated List despite policies and procedures requiring such screening. Thousands of accounts had also been established in a way that screening was only done at onboarding and not periodically. Further 90% of resolved sanctions “hits” did not include information or documents demonstrating the basis for the resolution.
Latvia’s Intelligence Services (the VDD) have arrested a Latvian national, reported as Marat Kasem.
The alleged offence is the provision of “economic resources” to a designated person, or an asset owned or controlled by such a person.
The designated person is Dmitry Kiselev, who is the Director General of Rossiya Segodnya which in turn owns a number of broadcast channels including Sputnik and Baltnews.
Mr Kasem is alleged to have provided the “economic resources” by way of being employed by these channels in Lithuania.
The Luxembourg financial services regulator, the CSSF, has announced today the imposition of a fine of €1.56 million on Banque Degroof Petercam Luxembourg SA.
The fine followed an inspection which started in September 2019, and relates to compliance failings in the context of AML and terrorist financing, and a failure to adequately screen clients for inclusion on EU sanctions lists.
The CSSF noted that remedial steps have been taken by the bank since the inspection of 2019/2020.
