Businesses must take responsibility for their assets in insecure country like Russia - opposition MP

RIGA - Businesses themselves should take full responsibility for their assets in an insecure country like Russia, opposition MP Janis Dombrava (National Alliance) told LETA.

In Dombrava's view, companies that have been operating in "this unsafe market which they have been warned about for years", for example, companies that have engaged in "laundering dirty Russian money", bear full responsibility for their assets, which can be lost at any moment in such an unsafe country.

The MP noted that the Moscow House in Riga, which Latvia plans to take over, is a Russian-owned property, therefore it affects the property of two countries, and not assets of private or legal persons.

At the same time, if Russia did something to seize Latvian companies' assets in the aggressor state, Dombrava would table a bill on the confiscation of Russian companies' assets in Latvia, the number of which is by far higher than the number of Latvian companies' assets in Russia, the lawmaker said. In such a case, Dombrava stressed, a response would follow. 

As reported, Rietumu Banka has called on the Saeima not to rush with the takeover of the Moscow House into state ownership, as the consequences of this law will affect Latvian merchants whose assets are located in Russia.

The bank drew the attention of MEPs to the fact that the adoption of such a law would give the aggressor state grounds to take identical action against Latvian companies, including Rietumu Banka, whose assets have been frozen in Russia in connection with Russian sanctions, in order to nationalize them.

This applies not only to Rietumu Banka and its assets, but also to other Latvian businesses, Buraja said. The amount of assets Latvian businesses and taxpayers would stand to lose is estimated at tens of millions of euros.