European Commission has published several new interpretation recommendations on financial sanctions

On Friday, 8 April, the EU adopted a so-called 5th package of sanctions involving a full transaction ban on four Russian banks (VTB Bank, Novikombank, Sovcombank and Otkritie FC Bank), which are totally cut off from the EU financial markets.

The scope of sanctions now covers three Finnish citizens: In addition to Gennadi Timtšenko, Boris Rotenberg and Elena Timtšenko have been added as subjects of personal sanctions.

Furthermore, the provision of crypto wallets, accounts and crypto asset deposit services in amounts exceeding EUR 10,000 to all Russian citizens and natural persons residing in Russia is forbidden.

Commission provides interpretation recommendations on the application of sanctions

The Commission has published a new website dedicated to sanctions imposed owing to the war in Ukraine. On 4 April 2022, several new interpretation recommendations were added to the site. The FIN-FSA urges supervised entities to study the guidelines provided on the website, before requesting interpretation recommendations from Finnish authorities.

Inquiries about EU sanctions on Russia and Belarus can still be sent by email to EC-RUSSIA-SANCTIONS(at)ec.europa.eu.

Focus on supervision of circumvention of sanctions

Lately, the most attention has been garnered by freezes of assets belonging to individuals subject to sanctions in Finland and Europe. The FIN-FSA expects that efforts to circumvent sanctions will increase as the war prolongs and the sanctions have an increasingly crippling effect on the Russian economy. Therefore, supervised entities must extend sanctions monitoring to transactions whose true objective is to circumvent sanctions.

For further information, please contact

Pekka vasara, Head of Division, telephone +358 9 831 5513

See also

FIN-FSA website on War in Ukraine