U.S. lifts sanctions from Rusal, En+, EuroSibEnergo

The U.S. Department of Treasury lifted sanctions imposed earlier on Rusal, En+ and EuroSibEnergo, it said yesterday in a statement.

"The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today lifted sanctions imposed on En+ Group plc ("En+"), UC Rusal plc ("Rusal"), and JSC EuroSibEnergo ("ESE"), following an earlier notification submitted to Congress on December 19, 2018," the document reads.

According to the statement, "under the terms of their removal from OFAC’s List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons" the companies "have reduced Oleg Deripaska’s direct and indirect shareholding stake in these companies and severed his control" over them.

This move "ensures that the majority of directors on the En+ and Rusal boards will be independent directors - including U.S. and European persons - who have no business, professional, or family ties to Deripaska" or any other entities or individuals sanctioned by the U.S, TASS reported.

The department also noted that all sanctions imposed on Deripaska remained in force.

Rusal's shares went up by more than 5% at the opening of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange today.

The vice-rector of the Academy of Labour and Social Relations Alexander Safonov, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza earlier, explained that lifting the sanctions was mutually beneficial. "Rusal's influence in terms of aluminium production is great, we shouldn't forget about it. Since Trump has pursued the policy of cheaper resources for the U.S. economy, the anti-Rusal sanctions turned out to be disadvantageous to him, because it would lead to a sharp increase in aluminium prices. Naturally, it would affect the competitiveness of American industry. Therefore, a situation arose in which Rusal managed, through a change in the form of ownership, to achieve the lifting of sanctions and a certain preservation of the status quo in the market," he noted.

This experience can be applied to other sub-authorized companies. "The Americans are consistent in their sanctions policy. Of course, there will be many questions for a number of other large industrial enterprises. They will impose sanctions on every company they could," Alexander Safonov said.