The transfer of seized Russian assets to Ukraine could turn out to be more complicated than expected

There has also been a discussion in the US Congress on how to change the legislation to allow for the complete confiscation of reserves belonging to the Russian state, although the administration of President Joe Biden is very cautious about this idea.

Lawyers point out that there are significant differences between private assets frozen by Western governments, such as oligarchs’ yachts, and state assets, such as the Russian Central Bank’s currency reserves.

In the case of private property, legal guarantees allow Western countries to confiscate it completely and in a very limited number of cases. This can usually be done if it is possible to prove that the object to be expropriated was purchased with money obtained through criminal means. Consequently, the confiscation of oligarchs’ yachts may cast doubt on various provisions, such as the right to property, protection against arbitrary punishment and the right to a fair trial.

Even if the oligarchs were indeed involved in “dirty Russian capitalism, we don’t really know whether the frozen assets were criminally obtained or not,” Australian National University spokesman Anton Moiseyenko told AFP.

There are other problems arising from bilateral agreements with Russia or investments that allow investors to go to the International Court of Arbitration. According to Moiseyenko, only Canada has expressed an aggressive position on this issue.

State assets, such as the reserves of the Central Bank, also cause problems. They are subject to the so-called “sovereign immunity”, according to which no country has the right to appropriate the assets of another country. It is believed that the central banks of the Western countries (the US Federal Reserve System, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan) have frozen Russian reserves worth more than 300 billion dollars.