On March 8, amendments to the Law on Sanctions came into force, removing restrictions on the sale of confiscated Russian assets.
Previously, only those assets could be sold that continued to belong to the Russians and their accomplices. Confiscation implies the termination of ownership. In addition, only the property of legal entities could be sold in Ukraine.
Now, the government can transfer the confiscated assets to the management of other bodies or state-owned enterprises, besides the SPFU. This will help avoid situations when the State Property Fund is entrusted with certain assets whose management is atypical for the Fund and sometimes inexpedient—for example, works of art or aviation parts.
The next step is to introduce changes to the Procedure for the Management and Sale of Assets because it has consistently taken over some risks of the Law. Without these changes, the problem of selling confiscated Russian assets will remain unresolved.
The Parliament gave the Cabinet six months to bring its regulatory acts in line with the law. We hope that the government will eliminate all the shortcomings as soon as possible because this will allow the sale of almost 700 confiscated objects managed by the SPFU.
