Tan Albayrak, a sanctions lawyer at Reed Smith, stated: “There is no legal basis, as the funds are frozen. They cannot be used to satisfy any party’s desires.”
“In sanctions laws, frozen means frozen,” Albayrak added. “The funds cannot be distributed according to Mr. Abramovich’s or the U.K. government’s wishes.”
The £2.5 billion sum is minor compared to the hundreds of billions frozen by the EU and U.K. since the Ukraine invasion in 2022. Despite bold statements, the British government is hesitant to navigate legally uncharted areas.
Britain has frozen about £24 billion of Russian assets, and the EU has €200 billion. They have only used the interest from these funds to aid Ukraine and are wary of further steps.
In March, the Belgian Prime Minister stated that further action would be “an act of war” posing “systemic risks to the entire financial world system.”
The quoted sanctions lawyer believes the government’s Reeves and Lammy statement suggests they want to assert their stance on sanctions. However, they noted: “There’s no mechanism to achieve this. Civil litigation does not provide a way.”
Leave a Reply