Belgium for the first time allowed collective unlocking of assets of Russians

The first license for the collective unlocking of assets belonging to Russians was issued by Belgium.

A license has been granted to a major Russian management firm to unlock the assets of over 250 individuals and legal entities.

The amount of assets that were permitted to be unfrozen is more than $33 million.

For the first time, the Belgian Ministry of Finance has granted a collective application for the release of assets in Euroclear, submitted by a large Russian management company. This is a departure from the Belgian agency's previous practice of only issuing licenses for unlocking assets upon individual applications from individuals and legal entities, as reported by Kommersant.

The Delcredere Bar Association announced that a management company from Russia, whose identity has not been revealed, has been granted permission to unlock assets worth more than $33 million, including foreign bonds and shares, depositary receipts, structured notes, and cash.

A license has been acquired which allows for the unfreezing of assets belonging to over 250 individuals and organizations.

The Belgian Ministry of Finance has recently granted a collective application, which is the first of its kind. Prior to this, individual applications from individuals and legal entities had been approved on a case-by-case basis.

Most of the individual licenses that were granted previously were to applicants who had a European presence, such as citizenship or a residence permit.

Estimates from the NSP Law Office suggest that several thousand collective and individual applications have been submitted by Russian investors. However, decisions on these requests have yet to be made.

The Ministries of Finance of Belgium and Luxembourg may be taking a long time to consider collective applications due to the high volume of requests they have received. Furthermore, the process has been made more complex by the implementation of sanctions against certain banks and brokers.