Freezing of Assets: Russia
The question
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will make an estimate of the annual amount of interest accrued on all assets frozen by the Government in relation to the war in Ukraine.
Answered by Emma Reynolds
The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), part of HM Treasury, published in its 2022-2023 Annual Review that between February 2022 and October 2023, £22.7 billion in frozen funds had been reported to OFSI in relation to the Russia sanctions regime. This is an aggregate figure as to not disclose the value of any funds held by particular designated persons or entities and is a cumulative total of assets report.
Interest accrued on frozen assets is still subject to an asset freeze to be frozen immediately by the person in possession or control of them, but there is no change in ownership of the frozen funds or economic resources, and they are not transferred to HM Treasury. As there is no obligation for a relevant institution to inform OFSI when it has credited interest to a frozen account, OFSI does not hold this information.
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