Herbert Smith Freehills fined £465,000 over Russia sanction breaches

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Herbert Smith Freehills has been fined £465,000 for breaching UK sanctions on Russia after the international law firm’s Moscow office made payments to a number of entities subject to asset freezes.

The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, part of the Treasury, said on Thursday that HSF had paid £3.9mn to groups including Russian banks Sovcombank and Sberbank.

The banks were “designated persons” — entities that were subject to sanctions — at the time. The payments were made by HSF’s Moscow subsidiary as it wound up its operations before closing in May 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a few months earlier.

The firm received a 50 per cent reduction in its penalty for voluntarily disclosing the breaches.

HSF said in a statement that the payments were made as a result of “human error”. The firm said it was “disappointed by the fine” given it had self-disclosed the error and co-operated.

This is a developing story