MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Thursday that unfriendly actions against Russia must have consequences, when asked whether Austrian bank Raiffeisen’s assets were vulnerable after a Russian court ordered it to pay 2 billion euros ($2.08 billion) in damages.
Monday’s court order, over a collapsed deal, underscored the perils of doing business in Russia for Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), the largest Western bank still operating there.
Russia’s central bank in September warned subsidiaries of Western banks that remain in Russia not to yield to pressure from Western regulators and discriminate against their Russian clients by denying them services, such as money transfers abroad.
Raiffeisen has around 6 billion euros in Russia, earned from international payments and from billions of euros of Russian deposits, a person with knowledge of the matter has told Reuters.
Asked whether moves by the West against Russia’s frozen assets could put those funds at risk, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “I will leave this without comment.
“I will simply emphasise that unfriendly actions towards the Russian Federation cannot but have consequences for those who take them.”
Raiffeisen has been caught between the need to comply with Russian banking regulations as one of the country’s largest lenders, and pressure from Europe and Washington to reduce its Russia exposure.
The court dispute followed the failure of a deal that Raiffeisen hoped would allow it to unlock some of its frozen billions in Russia.
The case was centred on a claim by Russian investment company Rasperia against builder Strabag, its Austrian shareholders and the Russian arm of Raiffeisen.
($1 = 0.9612 euros)
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
