Legal news
and practices in Russia

1. Where resident clients apply to a credit organization to execute transaction passports for foreign trade contracts (agreements) specified in Letter of the Bank of Russia of 7 December 2012 No. 167-N “On Increasing Attention of Credit Organizations to Some Transactions of Clients” (hereinafter referred to as Letter of the Bank of Russia No. 167-T) it is recommended to credit organizations to check in documents and information presented for the execution of a transaction passport, the authenticity of information including the registration information on counterparts of those resident clients (non-residents), on founders, stakeholders, and chief executives of legal persons – non-residents using official public sources of information (such as trade registers) of the state being the country of registration of the non-resident.

Any detection by the credit organization of an actual mismatch between the data in documents and information presented by the credit organization’s client for the execution of a transaction passport and the information obtained by the credit organization from public sources of information of the state being the country of registration of the non-resident, should be considered as the non-presentation by the resident to the authorized bank of respective documents and information (subparagraph 6.9.3 of paragraph 6.9 of the Instruction of the Bank of Russia of 4 June 2012 No. 138-I “On the Rules for Presentation by Residents and Non-Residents to Authorized Banks of Documents and Information relating to the Execution of Currency Transactions, Rules for the Execution of Transaction Passports as well as Rules for Accounting of Currency Transactions by Banks and Control over Execution thereof”).

2. Where the client makes payments in the course of te performance of foreign trade contracts (agreements) specified in Letter of the Bank of Russia No. 167-T regarding which transaction passports are executed (accepted to be serviced) and with respect to such client the credit organization takes measures specified by Letter of the Bank of Russia of 27 April 2007 No. 60-T “On Particulars of Banking Servicing of Clients Using the Technology of Distance Access to Client’s Banking Account (including the Internet Banking)” the Bank of Russia additionally recommends to credit organizations to check, within the implementation by credit organizations of a risk management program for legalization (laundering) of proceeds of crime and financing of terrorism, the authenticity of information including information on the counterparts of those resident clients (non-residents), registration information on founders, stakeholders, and chief executives of legal persons – non-residents using official public sources of information (such as trade registers) of the state being the country of registration of the non-resident.

Any detection by the credit organization when performing its internal rules of “anti-legitimization” control over non-matching between the information presented by the credit organization’s client with the information obtained by the credit organization from official public sources of the state being the country of registration of the non-resident, shall be deemed to be a ground for a refusal to perform a currency transaction pursuant to the fourth paragraph of part 5 of article 23 of the Federal Law “On Currency Regulation and Currency Control”.

It is recommended to submit any information upon transactions specified in this Letter, to the authorized body on the basis of paragraph 3 of article 7 of the Federal Law “On the Counteraction of Legitimization (Laundering) of the Proceeds of Crime and the Financing of Terrorism”.

It is agreed with the Federal Agency for the Financial Monitoring.

Make the contents of this letter known to credit organizations.

© Translated from Russian by V. Slavinskiy