How are western firms with Russian interests reacting to sanctions?
The Russian Wealth Advisors Forum describes itself as “the leading meeting place” for global experts who advise ultra-high net worth individuals from Russia and the post-Soviet states. The agenda for this year’s gathering in Zürich, due to be held in May, was laser-focused on defending the wealth of the Russian super-rich.
“The world has become a perilous place for the wealthy,” the event’s website fretted. “Governments are hungry for cash. Information on who owns what is flowing around. The rich are in the spotlight, and often a target.”
Presentations, including “The Pandora papers and their effect on the wealthy”, “Tax and immigration”, and whether cryptocurrency was a bankable asset, would be delivered by speakers from top accounting and legal firms, including PwC, EY and Mishcon de Reya.
But as of Thursday morning, the Russian Wealth Advisors Forum was no more. “We are currently in the process of exit from the Russian market, passing all Russian events to a new owner,” the event’s organiser said by email.
Exactly who will be willing to take on such an event now is unclear. Rather than strategising fresh deals and investments, Russia’s billionaires and millionaires are instead frantically relocating their liquid assets out of democratic states, fleeing a tsunami of sanctions from the US, the EU, and to a lesser extent the UK, aimed at pressuring the Putin regime into a ceasefire.
On Wednesday the Biden administration announced the formation of Task Force KleptoCapture to identify and freeze the assets of Russian business people who prospered under the Putin regime. “Oligarchs be warned: we will use every tool to freeze and seize your criminal proceeds,” said Lisa Monaco, the deputy attorney general.
At the same time,
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