Russian oligarch Deripaska complains of billions lost due to US sanctions
The Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska has lost billions as a result of US sanctions on himself and the companies he controls. The damage from these sanctions is in excess of $15 billion, Deripaska said in a statement.
These losses have been suffered by “investors, suppliers and clients of En+, Rusal and the GAZ Group” according the statement published on Deripaska’s website. The sanctions have “ruined a person’s life and business, and put hundreds of thousands of people at risk, including staff and investors in Russia and abroad,” the statement continues.
Deripaska claims that the sanctions were imposed based on a report that was fraught with false assertions and factual inaccuracies. “This is more than professional incompetence, it is like a gross breach of a public service’s duty and raises serious questions about the integrity and true intentions of the investigation by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC),” the statement reads. Deripaska remarked that the assertions that he has acted as a high-ranking Russian official and works in the Russian energy sector are particularly inaccurate.
On 6 April 2018, the US Treasury Department imposed restrictions on the 24 Russian businessmen and officials included in the so-called “Kremlin Report”. Apart from Deripaska, the list included Renova Group owner Viktor Vekselberg, VTB Bank Chairman Andrey Kostin, Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, National Guard Commander Viktor Zolotov, Aleksandr Zharov, head of Roskomnadzor (the federal censorship agency), and Alexey Dyumin, governor of the Tula province. Sanctions were also placed on 14 Russian companies.
On 27 January 2019, the US Treasury Department lifted the sanctions on Deripaska’s companies En+, Rusal and EuroSibEnergo. The decision was made after Deripaska reduced his stake in the companies to below 50% and appointed independent directors to the board of the En+ Group.
The reduction of the oligarch’s share in the said companies means that “most of the members of the board of directors of En+ and Rusal will be independent,” the US Treasury Department said in a statement. The directors include “representatives of the US and Europe who have no business, professional or family ties to Deripaska or any other person on Washington’s sanctions list,” the department noted. The sanctions on Deripaska himself were not lifted.