Dutch financial institutions have so far frozen over 6 million euros in Russian assets. This is apparent from a letter that Minister Sigrid Kaag (Finance, D66) sent to the House of Representatives this week. The SP had asked Kaag for an update on the effects of the sanctions.
Three weeks ago, the European Union announced a set of sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The assets of various Russians and Russian companies were frozen, among other things. Later, the European Union added additional names to the sanctions list in various rounds.
132 ‘customer relations’
According to Kaag, this concerns a total of 132 ‘customer relations’ whose assets have been frozen in the Netherlands. It is not clear how many individual Russians and Russian companies are affected. According to Kaag, the list “sometimes also contains several reports about one person”.
An important part of the total amount was frozen by managers of investment institutions and companies. Nearly 4 million euros of this was secured. At the banks, it concerns 1.75 million euros. The remaining 340,000 euros was parked with pension funds.
10 billion euros
The total sum of frozen assets is a lot lower than, for example, in Belgium. Last weekend, the Belgian government reported that it had frozen assets worth 10 billion euros. In addition, in several European countries, property such as yachts and villas were seized. These in themselves represent values of tens to hundreds of millions of euros.
The low total sum for the Netherlands is all the more striking in view of the favorable tax climate. Russian companies therefore often opt for a branch in the Netherlands. A trust office facilitates this establishment via, for example, a letterbox company and in many cases also takes over the board.
Trust offices
Remarkably, 110 of the 132 customer relationships with sanctioned Russians were reported by trust offices. However, none of the clients’ money has been frozen at the trust offices. “This is because assets are usually not held directly at trust offices,” Kaag writes in an explanation. Financial institutions are nevertheless obliged to report to the regulators AFM and DNB whether they have a sanctioned person as a customer.
DNB previously estimated that 30 billion euros in Russian investments flow through the Netherlands every year. Research website Follow the Money wrote in addition, recently that approximately EUR 38 billion was parked on the balance sheets of letterbox companies associated with Russians.
Kaag writes to the House of Representatives that she expects to send an update on the total amount of frozen assets shortly.