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US Treasury turns down reconsidering Deripaska’s sanctions complaint

The US Treasury is to provide the Russian mogul with an evidentiary memorandum for the denial no later than March 26, 2020, according to the Joint Status Report by the US District Court for the District of Columbia

© Sergei Fadeichev/TASS

MOSCOW, March 18. /TASS/. The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has rejected any administrative reconsideration of its decision on imposing sanctions against Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska. That is according to the Joint Status Report by the US District Court for the District of Columbia dated March 17.

The relevant decision was made on March 6.

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According to the document, the US Treasury is to provide Deripaska with an evidentiary memorandum for the denial no later than March 26, 2020. After that the tycoon will be able to file any amendments to his complaint "on or before April 16, 2020."

The process will continue through legal proceedings, the businessman’s spokeswoman told TASS. According to her, Deripaska filed his complaint to reconsider the decision on sanctions against him through administrative proceedings.

"Upon request of OFAC, the legal proceedings were suspended for the period they were considering his [Deripaska’s] request. Now, once they rejected his complaint, the legal proceedings will resume," she said.

The spokeswoman added that OFAC had considered the complaint for nine months, starting from June 27, 2019.

Sanctions against Deripaska

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Court declares Western media publications about entrepreneur Deripaska untrue

The US Treasury Department slapped sanctions on Oleg Deripaska and companies controlled by him on April 6, 2018. The sanctions covered Rusal, Basic Element, En+, Russian Machines, EuroSibEnergo, GAZ Group, B-Finance and the Kuban agroholding.

On January 27, 2019, Washington time (January 28 Moscow time), the US Department of Treasury announced the removal of sanctions against Rusal, En + and EuroSibEnergo. However, it cost Deripaska control of his enterprises. In particular, his share in the En+ holding plunged from 70% to 44.95%, while in Rusal, he directly owns only 0.01% of shares and is not entitled to receive dividends. The restrictions against the co-owner of those companies, Oleg Deripaska, remain in force.

In March 2019, Deripaska filed a lawsuit with the US Treasury in a federal court in Washington. He branded the sanctions introduced against him in April 2018 as unfair and illegal, and noted that his wealth had shrunk by more than $7.5 bln due to these sanctions in the complaint.

In June 2019, the magnate demanded that sanctions against him be lifted, since the conditions for their introduction were no longer relevant. In response, the US Treasury declassified some of the documents, which also had become the reason for the imposition of sanctions. Deripaska called that data false.

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