Are housing sanctions against Oligarchs just a waste of time?

A Russian billionaire says he no longer owns many of his former properties in the UK, raising question marks over the effectiveness of sanctions. 

Ex-Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov says his £82m London home and his Surrey mansion were both put into trusts earlier this month - after the Russian invasion of Ukraine but before he was personally sanctioned.

Officially Usmanov, who became a billionaire on the back of mineral rights and telecommunications in Russia, "cannot access his assets” in this country - he has also been banned from visiting the UK, and British citizens and businesses banned from dealing with him.

But the BBC says the sanction against him is in doubt because his spokesman says he is no longer the legal owner of many of those assets - the properties and a  yacht have been “transferred into irrevocable trusts” which cannot be amended, modified, or revoked.

However, his spokesman claims the status of the properties and the yacht now mean Usmanov can use them, but on a rental basis.

Sanctions expert Michael O’Kane says: “It’s very common for high net worth individuals… to structure both their commercial enterprises and their personal wealth in a way that gives them maximum tax efficiency. 

“Quite often that results in structures whereby they release ownership and control in return for more tax efficiency.

“In order for an entity to be designated under sanctions it needs to be owned or controlled by a sanctioned person. The more opaque and complex the structures of ownership the more difficult that is to establish.”

You can see the full BBC story here.