PARIS, May 16 — The deployment of unprecedented sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine war has left companies with a complex legal minefield to navigate, prompting them to hire more lawyers to avoid costly missteps.
Alex Zuck, managing director for product strategy at Moody’s Analytics, said the company in recent weeks had spoken to “hundreds” of compliance executives “struggling with and thinking about the sanctions exposure”. Conforming to the sanctions is even tougher because Russia had been closely integrated into the world economy and was seen as a promising market by many Western businesses.
Suddenly inundated with work, lawyers scrambled to examine the sanctions, categorise them by activity and invite clients to make audits as they found themselves “a little lost” at the start, she added. Business relations have to be scrutinised individually and painstakingly, including a review of clients, providers and partners, to see who really lies behind Russian structures.
The manual approach of asking counterparties to disclose beneficial owners is sometimes “very difficult” due to the opacity of many Russian structures, he added.