Investor Protection Club discusses licensing for unblocking assets

On 12 October 2022, at an extraordinary meeting, members of the Investor Protection Club discussed the procedure for obtaining licences to unblock the assets of Russian investors.

The National Settlement Depository (NSD) notified members that it had sent requests to the Belgian and Luxembourg finance ministries to apply for master licences to unblock the securities of all unlisted investors at Euroclear and Clearstream.

Club members agreed that if European financial regulators did not respond by the end of October, they would prepare requests for individual licences to unblock the securities of non-sanctioned investors in accordance with the European Commission’s background note of 6 October 2022.

The Investor Protection Club currently includes Moscow Exchange Group, NAUFOR, the NFA, the Association of Russian Banks and more than 100 companies with direct contractual relations with the NSD.

The purpose of the Club is to create a common information space for market participants, as well as to protect investors’ interests in the context of the economic restrictions imposed on the NSD by the European Union.