Volkswagen, Apple, Ikea, Microsoft, IBM, Shell, McDonald’s o Porsche. These are just some of the names of the companies that Russia has been added to the list of companies whose assets in the country are likely to be nationalized after they decided to cease their operations after the invasion of Ukraine. This is how the Russian newspaper collects it Izvestia which points out that these are companies that decided to leave “without providing guarantees to consumers” in recent weeks.
The list, which would have been sent to the Government and the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, has been supported by the government commission on legislative activities and is open to including new names. In this sense, and according to the same media, these sixty companies would have committed obligations with “citizens, the state and contractors” is more than six billion rubles. In the words of Oleg Pavlov, president of the Public Consumer Initiative, the author of the list, is exactly the same amount as his income in Russia for the last three years.
In addition to the aforementioned names, almost twenty companies from the automotive world appear on the list, among which stand out Ford, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot, Renault or Citröen. Also high-end vehicle brands such as Jaguar or Porsche and heavy vehicles, such as Scania.
Also on this list are technology manufacturing companies like Nokia, Siemens, Apple or Intel; linked to cinema, such as Walt Disney or Sony; and the world of retail, both physical, as is the case with H&M or Nike, or online, such as Amazon or Asos. Names such as transport companies also appear on the list DHL, UPS y FedEx or multinationals like Uber and Spotify.
Although the possible nationalization of the assets of these companies is only a hypothesis, from the United Russia party, founded by Vladimir Putin himself, they manage a plan that would impose external management of these assets for a maximum of three months, according to the plan to which you have access the Economist. Once this period expired, the asset or the company, if it is a subsidiary, could be sold to a new owner who would have to maintain at least two-thirds of the workforce and continue to exploit the asset for a minimum of one year.
For the rest of the companies that are not likely to be expropriated because they have stores for rent, as is the case of Inditex or luxury giants like LVMHconditions have been changed. Until now, as the same media collects, they paid a variable lease based on sales, although from this moment, according to statements by Bulat Sharikov, director of the Union of Shopping Centers, will be a fixed amount. This would affect some 150 companies around the world.
expropriate patents
Russia has proposed other measures beyond the possibility of nationalizing assets that they consider that companies from sanctioned countries “have neglected”. In this regard, Russia has signed a decree allowing its companies use patents from foreign countries without paying the relevant fees. This fact would affect Spanish patents and those of countries from the rest of the European Union.
It would not only have consequences for these countries, it could also lead to damage for Russia, since the sanctioned countries – from the EU and the United States – could decide not to pay Russia for the use of their patents.
Control auditing companies
Another key point in which Putin is seeking to act is on the companies of audit. Foreign companies announced their departure from the country weeks ago and now Russia thinks they may have sensitive information about key companies in the country that could pass into the hands of Western countries. For this reason, in Russia they are looking for the possibility of incorporating state managers into these companies to safeguard the information.
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