It has been reported today that the German authorities in Bavaria have conducted raids on multiple properties belonging to a designated person.
While the German authorities have not stated the identity of the designated person, press reporting has stated the person is Alisher Usmanov.
It has been reported today that the FCA is currently investigating Revolut for permitting transactions valued at £1.7 million in breach of the UK’s sanctions between July and August this year.
Revolut has stated in response that it reported the transactions to the FCA and that the value is £500,000.
As part of the ongoing reporting of an investigation into the sale of a tugboat from Finland to Russia in breach of EU sanctions, it was reported today that the Finnish authorities are have been undertaking over 600 investigations into potential sanctions breaches since February 2022.
Sixty of these are said to be “aggravated” indicating that they are of a more serious, or high value, nature.
The Dutch have announced that the Public Prosecution Service is currently undertaking 55 criminal investigations into suspected breaches of Russian and Belarusian sanctions.
Little information on the breaches is available, but the authorities have stated that roughly two thirds relate to breaches of trade sanctions, and one third to financial sanctions.
As of December the number was at 27, meaning 28 have been added during 2023 to date.
In response to questions about Russian sanctions enforcement the Latvian authorities have confirmed that they have 14 ongoing criminal prosecutions of which three relate to exports, including circumvention of sanctions by routing exports through China and central Asia, and the others to breaches of financial sanctions.
The Latvian authorities also stated they received 281 suspicious activity reports during 2022 in relation to Russian sanctions, and had received 309 so far in 2023.
The UK’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) has announced its most recent enforcement action, coupled with changes to its Guidance on its attitude to enforcement.
On 29 June 2022 a new person was added to the UK’s sanctions list as a “Designated Person”. At 4am the next morning a debit card in that Designated Person’s name, but relating to a separate company (albeit one owned or controlled by the Designated Person) was used to withdraw £250. OFSI’s published action relates to Wise Payments Limited (Wise), the regulated financial services firm with which the account was held. While Wise had reacted to the designation of its customer by blocking transfers into or out of the account, its policy was not to stop debit cards on the basis that it often had a lot of false positives with sanctions screening and that it had a duty to its customers as well. The debit card was not blocked until the after the weekend as its sanctions team did not work on the weekend. No further withdrawals were made over this period.
OFSI’s view in its notice is that blocking debit cards while ascertaining if a screening match is genuine is a wholly proportionate policy for managing sanctions risk. Further, not having a sanctions team to review screening hits over the weekend was insufficient.
Thus while the value of the breach was low, and Wise self-reported promptly and co-operated, OFSI applied its “severity” test and determined that Wise’s actions amounted to a moderately severe breach. It was on this basis that OFSI has published the details of this breach, albeit it did not impose a civil penalty nor propose a criminal prosecution. This is the first time that OFSI has used its new “disclosure” power in this way.
The other noteworthy factor is that Wise’s conduct was treated as “making available” assets to a designated person. Wise’s role was passive – it took no step to transfer or give assets to the Designated Person. Nonetheless, the failure to block the debit card was interpreted as itself amounting to “making available” what should be frozen assets to a designated person. This is helpful in clarifying the breadth of the view taken by OFSI on what can amount to “making available”.
The National Anti-Terrorism Centre of Czechia has initiated an investigation into the activities of the Austrian Raiffeisen Bank International due to its subsidiary’s operations in Russia.
An earlier complaint against Raiffeisen Bank had been filed by the Association for Citizens’ and Entrepreneurs’ Rights.
Police have confirmed that the Anti-Terrorism Centre is conducting an investigation regarding the banking group. However, no further details were disclosed.
It is being reported that so far during 2023 a total of 45 investigations have been opened by the Danish Business Authority in relation to alleged breaches of the EU’s sanctions against Russia.
Of these:
No further details on the cases have been published.
The annual report for de Volksbank N.V. has revealed the results of a sanctions-review by the Dutch National Bank.
The report states:
“Furthermore, de Volksbank has initiated a comprehensive remediation project to enhance the customer screening and transaction screening systems. This project will remediate findings from regulatory testing of our screening systems conducted by DNB in the second half of 2022, and is expected to be finalised in the first half of 2024”.
The report also notes that the DNB had identified compliance failings in the AML and anti-terrorist financing space, and de Volksbank has made a provision of €1 million in anticipation of the expected fine.
The German financial services regulator, BaFin, has issued a press release confirming an investigation into the money laundering and sanctions compliance of the bank Varengold Bank AG. The particular focus is Iran sanctions.
BaFin has prohibited the bank from processing payment transactions involving Iran, or person or companies resident in Iran. BaFin has also appointed a representative to oversee compliance with this prohibition.
