In the Netherlands, sanctions have prompted an examination of the country’s role as a popular way station for companies and industrialists routing profits to low-tax jurisdictions like Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands. On May 15, the Dutch Parliament will hold a debate on how Russian and Ukrainian magnates and companies have used the Netherlands to dodge taxes. Putin has been urging his country’s businessmen for more than a year to bring their capital back home. “Russian companies have to be registered here, in their home country, and have a transparent ownership structure,” Putin said at a March 20 business conference in Moscow. Instead, some $51 billion of Russian capital exited the country in the first quarter of 2014, according to central bank data. That figure has risen to more than $60 billion, U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said last week. A total of $63 billion flowed out of Russia last year. U.S. Sanctions The U.S. has issued four rounds of sanctions against individuals and companies in response to Russia’s seizure of Crimea, Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking peninsula that juts into the Black sea, and its alleged backing of pro-Russian militants who have taken over part of eastern Ukraine. Russian forces, estimated by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to number about 40,000, continue to mass on Ukraine’s border, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said on April 30. Last week, the U.S. placed Igor Sechin, the CEO of state-controlled Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer, on its sanctions list. His company, which was not put on a blacklist, has billions of dollars in assets in a series of Luxembourg vehicles, records show. The company has also used units in Cyprus, Ireland, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Its Irish subsidiary reported more than $2 billion in gross revenue in 2012, according to its most recent filing. Gennady Timchenko Rosneft’s foreign subsidiaries and companies were primarily established by previous owners, a company representative said in an e-mailed statement. These companies are “dormant in Rosneft and are destined for liquidation” once contracts have expired, Rosneft said.
Posted on: Tue, 06 May 2014 03:48:37 +0000
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