OFAC GL authorises energy related transactions with Russian banks
The US Office of Foreign Assets Control (‘OFAC’) has issued General License 81 which authorises ‘transactions related to energy’ with a number of Russian banks and other financial institutions. The institutions to which the licence applies are:
- State Corporation Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs Vnesheconombank;
- Public Joint Stock Company Bank Financial Corporation Otkritie;
- Sovcombank Open Joint Stock Company;
- Public Joint Stock Company Sberbank of Russia;
- VTB Bank Public Joint Stock Company;
- Joint Stock Company Alfa-Bank;
- Public Joint Stock Company Rosbank;
- Bank Zenit Public Joint Stock Company;
- Bank Saint-Petersburg Public Joint Stock Company;
- Any entity in which one or more of the above persons own, directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, a 50 percent or greater interest; or
- the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.
It says, ‘For the purposes of this general license, the term “related to energy” means the extraction, production, refinement, liquefaction, gasification, regasification, conversion, enrichment, fabrication, transport, or purchase of petroleum, including crude oil, lease condensates, unfinished oils, natural gas liquids, petroleum products, natural gas, or other products capable of producing energy…as well as the development, production, generation, transmission, or exchange of power, through any means, including nuclear, thermal, and renewable energy sources.’
