Global firm Norton Rose Fulbright has told its lawyers not to comment publicly on sanctions imposed on Russian individuals and businesses following the invasion of Ukraine.

Western states have imposed a variety of international sanctions in recent days, including measures to freeze the assets of Russia’s central bank and removing ‘selected Russian banks’ from the Swift international payments system.

Foreign secretary Liz Truss, who has previously spoken about a ‘hitlist of oligarchs that we are targeting’, said today that the government will ‘target the families of oligarchs, the people that work for them, the people who support them and the people who enable them’.

Norton Rose Fulbright has issued an ‘internal notice relating specifically to external commentary on sanctions’, a spokesperson confirmed to the Gazette, adding that the firm has ‘appropriate risk management policies in place across our global business’.

They said: ‘Our sanctions team is advising clients across the world and, given the rapidly evolving situation, it is important that this advice is provided directly, through the appropriate channels. We therefore recently issued an internal notice relating specifically to external commentary on sanctions.

‘We take client confidentiality extremely seriously and it is standard practice for us to issue internal notices on any developing legal and regulatory issues, where clients may be directly or indirectly affected.

‘We are not able to comment on individual clients. We have appropriate risk management policies in place across our global business and keep all relationships the firm has under review.’

 

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