US senators demanded that banks disclose ties to those on the “Kremlin list”

Two American Democratic senators, Gene Shaheen and Sheldon Whitehouse, sent letters to major European and American banks asking them to disclose any information about their ties to businessmen on the Kremlin list of the US Treasury Department, Reuters writes, citing a copy of the document .

• In the letter, the senators ask if banks have been "checking" whether they have accounts controlled by anyone in the US agency's report. Shaheen and Whitehouse are also asking for information about these checks and any similar materials, and in the absence of them, to explain what the bank has done to determine whether it does business with the Russians on the list. As noted in the document, Russian businessmen "often use their influence to protect the state from sanctions."
• Three major US banks, Bank of America, JPMorgan and Citibank, as well as several European banks, including Barclays, Deutsche Bank, UBS, HSBC and Credit Suisse, received the senators' letter. JPMorgan confirmed the receipt of the letter, Barclays declined to comment, the rest did not promptly respond to a Reuters request.
• As the agency emphasizes, if banks do not provide information, senators are planning potentially tougher measures - for example, a government investigation.

Context

• At the end of January, the US Treasury published a "Kremlin report", which included all Russian businessmen with a fortune of more than $1 billion (the Forbes list was officially used) - 96 people. The report was prepared under the Sanctions Act ( CAATSA ), which US President Donald Trump signed into law on August 2. The law prescribes that a list of "oligarchs close to the Russian authorities" be drawn up.
• Formally, no restrictions are automatically imposed on the persons involved in the report, but it was this list that became the basis for the latest large-scale US economic sanctions imposed in early April.

Such initiatives increase the pressure on large Russian businesses abroad. In particular, they can lead to an increase in the cost of loans for Russians from the Forbes list or close large financial institutions in the West for them.

Artem Gubenko