FiveBy experts are often asked to provide insights on risk-related news, industry trends, and other sanctions and money-laundering issues.

Irene Kenyon, FiveBy Director of Risk Intelligence, recently participated in a free webinar with Thomson Reuters on how US firms and financial institutions can best adjust to the volatile sanctions environment caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Topics in this hour-long webinar include strategies to protect companies from regulatory risk, given the rapidly changing sanctions environment, with new designations being released almost on a daily basis, reputational risk, de-risking, and transparency that makes tracking illicit assets much less challenging.

Best advice 

Companies must examine their own risk appetites. What are their red lines? Are they willing to do business in Russia at all, given the sanctions  risks?

And if companies feel they cannot completely disengage from Russia, they must watch the regulatory and legislative developments and do proactive assessments about businesses that may be at risk of being sanctioned, about entities that may have connections with Russian oligarchs  who may be in danger of being designated, and know how much being involved with Russia will impact their reputations in the ESG sphere, which is becoming more and more critical for both clients and investors.