Russia’s Putin bans foreign bank accounts for state officials

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law Tuesday, May 7 a bill that bans scores of Russian officials from keeping their money in foreign banks, but allows them to own property abroad, RIA Novosti said.

The law also prohibits officials from owning financial instruments, including derivatives.

The ban covers members of the federal Cabinet and regional governments, parliamentary speakers and committee heads, federal judges, state corporation CEOs, regional governors, heads of municipalities and a handful of other senior officials, including the prosecutor general, the head of the Investigative Committee and the president himself.

The ban includes officials’ spouses and underage children, but not other relatives.

Officials currently owing assets abroad have three months to get rid of them, which can be done by placing them into blind trusts. State servants who fail to comply risk sacking, but no further punishment.

The original draft filed by Putin with parliament in February also prohibited officials from owing real estate outside Russia, but this provision was later dropped.

The Kremlin calls the ban a move in its ongoing anti-corruption campaign, which has seen two ex-government ministers implicated in separate corruption probes and several lawmakers resign in recent months over allegations of undeclared real estate or illegal business activity.