Russia plans to seize assets of foreign-owned firms

The Kremlin is threatening to nationalise foreign-owned companies that have refused to work with Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. The Russian government is “already working on measures that include bankruptcy and nationalisation of the property” of foreign companies, Dmitri Medvedev, the former Russian president, said in a statement on the VKontakte social media site. Russia’s economy ministry has prepared a bill with new policies to take temporary control of departing companies where foreign ownership is greater than 25%. A Moscow court could review requests from board members to bring in external managers and freeze shares of overseas-owned companies to try to preserve property and jobs. Businesses could then be repackaged and sold at a public auction after three months, with the new owners committing to preserve the majority of jobs. The US government has threatened to retaliate if Russia seizes the assets of private sector companies that have decided to pull out of the country, without specifying how it would do so. The Times (£) The FT (£) The Guardian