Government receives first batch of data on sanctioned entities, more expected (updated)

By Iole Damaskinos and Elias Hazou

President Nikos Christodoulides on Tuesday said the government has received the first batch of information on natural and legal persons included on the US sanctions list, while two more packages are expected soon.

“Yesterday [Monday] we received the first information from the United States, the first data packet, and two more packets will follow shortly,” the president said.

Addressing the 13th Nicosia Economic Congress, Christodoulides said he has spoken with the attorney- general and that he would immediately forward to him all the information so that the relevant authorities can start processing it.

Christodoulides stressed that protecting the country’s name and credibility as a business and financial centre are of paramount importance.

“It is imperative,” he noted, “that we approach the issue with the appropriate seriousness, to do what we can so as not to allow anyone to blacken the country’s name, and I am certain that you [the delegates at the Nicosia Economic Congress] who represent our economy realise and share the need to finish up with this matter and move into the new era.”

On Monday, Christodoulides had intimated that at its next session, on Wednesday, the cabinet would take certain decisions relating to the sanctions on Russian nationals.

It’s understood he made those comments prior to receiving the first data packet from the United States.

According to information on StockWatch, the data from the US is included in a massive dossier consisting of 800 pages.

When asked which US department or agency sent the information, and to whom specifically in the Cyprus government, a government spokesperson said only that the information was relayed by the US Embassy to the Cypriot diplomatic corps.

The submitted evidence covers Cypriot law and audit firms that appear to be involved in the activities of Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, who is on both the US and UK sanctions lists.

The British government alleges that Usmanov attempted to conceal ownership of Sutton Place, a 15th century Tudor manor.

According to a report published by the Financial Times in early March, the registered owners of Sutton Place Estate are listed on the Land Registry as two Cyprus-incorporated companies: Delesius Investments Ltd and Bacerius Investments Ltd. No individual is listed on the register and neither company has a website, but both are registered at the same address in Nicosia, Cyprus.

“But names do appear on a Surrey county council register of public rights of way through the estate, dated July 17 2007. One is Pambina Votsi, listed as a witness for Delesius Investments,” the Financial Times reported.

“Votsi’s LinkedIn profile describes her as a senior administrator at law firm Christodoulos G Vassiliades & Co, a Cypriot law firm based at the same Nicosia address as Delesius and Bacerius. In a 2020 report, ‘The Kremlin Playbook in Europe’, published by Sofia-based think-tank the Center for the Study of Democracy, the practice is described as ‘probably the law firm that has had the closest ties to the Kremlin’.”

Christodoulos Vassiliades, the firm’s managing director, denied the allegations contained in the report. “There is no substance to the innuendo that our firm ‘has had the closest ties to the Kremlin’,” he said. “We are an international law firm licensed and supervised by six jurisdictions and its respective regulatory bodies.”

He did confirm that Votsi had worked at the firm for 18 years and was currently a “senior corporate administrator.”

The UK and US sanctions lists named natural persons and companies in Cyprus said to be at the centre of a web of trusts and offshore companies related to Usmanov.

Following publication of the sanctions lists, Christodoulides convened a succession of meetings with all relevant ministries, the attorney-general’s office, the Central Bank and professional associations of lawyers and auditors.

He also contacted a senior US government official by phone, and conveyed the intention of the state to fully clarify and bring to justice cases of criminal offence or violation of any laws of the Republic or of EU sanctions against Russia.

Meanwhile affected banks, acting to safeguard their interests, froze the accounts of named individuals, despite these not appearing on UN or EU lists.

Cyprus must enforce EU and UN sanctions under a law passed in 2016.