The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is urging broker-dealers to review the various sanctions issued against Russian financial institutions, debt and equity offerings and leaders, and to monitor the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) website for more developments.
FINRA issued two alerts, one on Feb. 25 and the other on Monday.
As FINRA notes, the United States' first action came on Feb. 21 when President Joe Biden issued an executive order titled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons and Prohibiting Certain Transactions With Respect to Continued Russian Efforts to Undermine the Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity of Ukraine."
The next day, Treasury announced sanctions under Executive Order 14024 "in response to actions in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions" of Russia.
Treasury stated that the sanctions target "Russia's ability to finance aggression against its neighbors by sanctioning the Corporation Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs Vnesheconombank (VEB) and Promsvyazbank Public Joint Stock Company (PSB), along with 42 of their subsidiaries."
Treasury also announced the same day "increased restrictions on dealings in Russia's sovereign debt" pursuant to Executive Order 14024 that extend "existing sovereign debt prohibitions to cover participation in the secondary market for bonds issued after March 1, 2022 by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, the National Wealth Fund of the Russian Federation, or the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation."
