News
From the Editor: What’s Up with Russia?
By Kieran Beer
printAnti-money laundering enforcement actions against financial institutions issued by the Central Bank of Russia have sky rocketed over the past two years. In fact, until August 20, 2012, when Sberbank Bank and Bystro Bank were initially named, Russia hadn't publicly issued any AML enforcement actions. Subsequently, the central bank issued 135 enforcement actions in 2012 and 216 in 2013 year-to-date. What the spike in penalties means is a frequent topic of discussion here at ACAMS, particularly each time the legal team in New York collects, briefs and posts the latest of these actions to ACAMS moneylaundering.com. More Russia's relatively aggressive...
TO READ THE FULL STORY
Related News
Although the grandson of a former head of the Communist Party USA, Bill Browder isn't exactly beloved by Russian officials, even those professing nostalgia for the Soviet Union's supposedly golden days.
U.S. and European officials are developing a coordinated response to recent attacks on Ukrainian civilians and could announce additional sanctions against Russia as early as this week.
At its highest levels, Russian corruption over the past 20 years has been disguised by networks of shell companies and facilitated by foreign banks willing to turn a blind eye to state embezzlement, according to Karen Dawisha, a political science professor at Ohio-based Miami University.
Whatever the effectiveness of sanctions meant to sway Russia's involvement in Ukraine, one thing is certain: they've worsened the country's capital flight problem. By year's end, approximately $128 billion will have moved abroad, up from $63 billion in 2013, according to Russia's central bank.
The expansion of Western sanctions targeting Russia will require banks to closely vet additional types of credit and transactions tied to financial, energy and defense firms, according to attorneys.
The EU on Monday adopted extended sanctions targeting Moscow's oil and defense industries' measures expected to raise compliance costs for banks in the economic bloc, once implemented.
Military clashes in Ukraine are complicating behind-the-scenes efforts by some EU nations to prevent new sanctions and roll back existing financial restrictions targeting Russia.
Threatened U.S. sanctions against large swathes of Russian businesses would likely target defense and financial firms ahead of energy companies if imposed, according to experts.
The first line of the Ukrainian national anthem could well apply to the battered nation's banks these days: "Ukraine is not dead yet."
U.S. officials have no plans to negotiate Russia's compliance with an anti-tax evasion law that takes effect this summer and could impose stiff monetary penalties on nonparticipating financial institutions.
Although sanctions on Russian nationals and companies might seem fairly innocuous at first blush, compliance departments at European banks are finding the task of identifying designees unusually difficult, say legal experts.
Diplomatic tension over Ukraine has raised doubts that the United States will attend an upcoming Moscow plenary of the world's largest anti-money laundering task force, say current and former officials.
A U.S. Senate committee voted Wednesday to grant the White House the power to impose sanctions on corrupt Russian officials and buoy Ukraine's economy through conditional loans.
As the Obama administration weighs punitive measures against Russia, part of its calculus will be the degree to which Russian officials can undermine U.S. national interests, including sanctions against Iran.
The Obama administration is "actively" considering designating Russians linked to the invasion of Ukraine under a 2012 human rights law, according to a U.S. State Department official.
The U.S. Justice Department sued Tuesday for the forfeiture of New York property tied to a $230 million tax fraud and money laundering scheme linked to the death of a Russian attorney.