Sanctions: how is your practice affected?
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in an act of unprovoked aggression that has led to refugee, food and economic crises and has drawn international condemnation.
With neither country yet a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), opposed countries’ hands have been tied in terms of military intervention without risking triggering war on a much wider and even more catastrophic scale.
However, numerous governments have acted swiftly to impose sanctions on Russian-connected entities and individuals and to restrict practitioners from working with the subjects of the sanctions. Australia, Canada, Japan, Monaco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, the UK and the US have all imposed significant sanctions. Additionally, the EU has put in place a Member State-wide package of sanctions.
The shape of sanctions
One of the first moves made on a global unified scale was to expel Russia’s banks from the SWIFT interbank messaging system;[1] moreover, restrictive measures were imposed to prevent the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves in ways that undermine the impact of the sanctions.
Over time, however, countries have increased or evolved the sanctions they imposed in order to take into account a wider group of individuals.
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