Britain plans to amend its legislation so that it can impose economic sanctions on oligarchs and companies associated with Russian President Vladimir Putin more quickly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, British authorities said, citing Reuters.
“The changes we are working on will allow us to be quicker and tougher in our actions against Putin’s entourage, including the oligarchs, by increasing pressure on illegal and unprovoked Russian aggression,” said British Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Shayk.
The British government has been criticized for failing to impose sanctions on Putin’s allies for too long, according to Reuters.
Following Russia’s invasion on February 24, London imposed sanctions on 11 wealthy Russians, Putin himself and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, as well as four Belarusian servicemen.
The first series of amendments to the Economic Crimes Act (Transparency and Enforcement) will give the British authorities new powers to punish more quickly people who have previously been subject to sanctions by the European Union, the United States and Canada.
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The amendments will remove the so-called “compliance” check when imposing sanctions on an individual or individuals, which will allow the government to act faster and make it even easier to impose sanctions on groups of individuals, the British Foreign Office said.
The bill is expected to pass all stages of its adoption in the lower house (House of Commons) on Monday, after which the government will try to speed up its consideration in the upper house (House of Lords) to gain legal force as soon as possible, said the British cabinet.