The EU will penalize intermediaries in transfers from the Russian Federation. This threatens not only Russians

In May, the EU for the first time imposed sanctions against payment agents that allowed Russians and companies to transfer money from Russia to Europe and settle accounts with foreign counterparties for goods under sanctions. For a long time, such businesses remained in the shadows: their scheme of netting through mirror accounts in different jurisdictions allowed them to avoid direct international transfers. Now it is banned by the EU, and anyone who has used such services faces new blocking of bank accounts and even criminal cases.

In mid-May, the EU adopted the 20th package of sanctions against Ma. For the first time, payment agents - Arneis, Asia Import Group, Platejka and GPAgent - were included in the sanctions lists. All of them are linked to Russia: their offices are located in this country, and some of them have Russian tax numbers and phone numbers on their websites.

All offer a similar set of services: parallel imports, cargo transportation, customs clearance and so-called "financial logistics". The latter means money transfers, including via SWIFT, and cross-border settlements in countries that have cut Russia off from their financial infrastructure. For example, Platejka promises to make such payments in Germany and Estonia, while GPAgent promises to make such payments throughout the European Union. The companies promise to provide each transaction with a set of documents that will convince European banks and law enforcement officials that the funds are clean and have no ties to Russia.

Intermediaries are often involved in such transfer schemes. As a rule, these are firms from the PRC, UAE, Turkey, Vietnam, and Kazakhstan. Their accounts in the EU and third countries are used in financial and logistical chains. The companies assure that their services are reliable and safe, and they themselves are backed by liquidity. For example, GPAgent indicates that the total liquidity of its partners is more than $200 million. This is enough for any payment.

Arneis, Asia Import Group, Platejka and GPAgent did not respond to Oninvest's request.

Payment agents work according to a different scheme than classical financial institutions, explains Evgeny Konovalov, head of the financial law and capital markets practice of the Delcredere Bar Association. They are often small trading, logistics, and agency companies that perform the settlement function through netting mechanisms (when instead of multiple separate payments, the parties calculate only the net result), netting and mirror accounts in several jurisdictions. For example, roubles paid to a supplier for goods through an agent do not leave the Russian Federation. But the equivalent of the required amount is debited to the accounts of its partners in other countries, and so on several times until the money reaches the supplier.

Such transactions have no obvious signs of sanctions violations: they do not involve a direct cross-border transfer from a Russian company or citizen, says Roman Kuzmin, counselor at the Pen & Paper Bar Association. This is why they remained outside sanctions control for a long time: it took time to link the transactions of partners of one payment agent in different jurisdictions and prove that their meaning was financial services to a Russian person.

Payment agents are not licensed in the EU and operate from third countries. Formally, the EU cannot require foreign companies to comply with European law, but can include them in the sanctions lists piece by piece.

This is too long a path. So in the 20th package of sanctions, the EU tried out two new mechanisms through which it hopes to solve the problem fundamentally. First, it banned any interaction with individuals in third countries who help Russia circumvent the sanctions.

Second, in the new package, the EU for the first time introduced anti-circumvention measures against an entire country for helping to circumvent sanctions. They are being tested on Kyrgyzstan: the EU is not satisfied with the fact that this state is being used as a hub for re-exporting technologies banned for import to Russia and as a financial center for settlements related to Russia. In addition to direct bans on dual-use products, Europe has also imposed sanctions on two Kyrgyz banks, Keremet and Kapital.

Here the reputational effect for the whole jurisdiction is important, because even those market participants who are not involved in such transactions may now face refusals to make payments and economic costs, says Roman Kuzmin.

Despite the tough bans, the gray payment infrastructure for the Russian Federation is rapidly adapting. "We will see a constant race between sanctions regulation and mechanisms for adapting international settlements," says Evgeny Konovalov. According to him, sending money to the EU will become even more expensive for businesses from the Russian Federation, the number of intermediaries who are willing to assume the risks will decrease, and the dependence on "friendly" jurisdictions will grow. At the same time, he believes that payment agents and their partners will change jurisdictions of registration more often, the term of operation of such structures will shrink, and settlements will increasingly be conducted through a combination of trading companies, crypto services and regional banks.

Russians who transferred money through payment agents should expect a wave of inquiries from banks. "If you do not have a normal contract with the payer, the bank may reject the transfer or even close the account. I have such cases," says financial consultant Natalia Smirnova.

A European bank is highly likely to close the account, especially if the company that transfers the money is on the Internet as a payment agent for transfers from the Russian Federation.

If a person is an EU resident and uses payment services to withdraw money from the Russian Federation, then now European authorities, banks and law enforcers can treat this as a violation of European sanctions with corresponding consequences. And they may treat a payment from a payment service as income from the point of view of the taxation of the country of residence, Smirnova says.

Complex multi-step transactions are considered one of the signs of possible money laundering, recalls lawyer Kira Vinokurova. However, in order to recognize a transaction as a violation of the sanctions regime, it is sufficient to prove that it actually replaces a prohibited payment. To qualify a violation of anti-money laundering (AML) rules, additional signs are required: lack of economic sense, concealment of the ultimate recipient of funds, multi-level structure of the transaction or its connection to criminal activity, explains Andrei Gusev.

If the financial intelligence unit finds a violation of the anti-money laundering legislation, it will refer the case to national law enforcement authorities. As a result, one and the same transaction may face administrative liability for violation of the sanctions regime, depending on the national legislation of the EU country, and criminal liability - for example, imprisonment for up to five years if the economic loss from the violation exceeds €100,000. And in the case of establishing the fact of money laundering - also freezing of accounts and criminal liability for up to four years, says Mirza Chiragov, founder of the legal research center Digital Law Lab.

Iranians, who have long lived under sanctions imposed by the US and its allies, use similar payment schemes to the Russian ones.

New restrictions aimed only at Russian payments may create grounds for discrimination arguments when challenging Russian sanctions. However, Kira Vinokurova is confident that there is no legally significant precedent for a challenge, as we are talking about different sanctions regimes, which have different purposes and conditions of application.

Oninvest sent requests to the EC and to the office of David O'Sullivan, EU Special Representative for Sanctions. By the time of publication, they had not responded to the request.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor