U.S. sanctions law, through the general licenses that OFAC issues and amends, can authorize certain administrative transactions connected with winding down or maintaining a Russian entity — typically taxes, maintenance, local salaries, and the costs of preserving or liquidating the company. The operative text is the license then in force, not a blog post from the year operations stopped.
Two failure modes show up in our intake. First, over-restriction: the parent refuses to pay a New York invoice for tax administration that applicable licenses still allow, and the subsidiary goes dark. Second, under-restriction: leftover sales, goods, or a listed bank are treated as “just keeping the lights on.” The memo has to be specific to the entity.
Colibry will not be your law firm. We will date-stamp a map of the leftover operations against the sanctions rules then in force, screen SDN and the 50-percent rule, and refuse work that does not fit. Qualified U.S. counsel should still own the opinion.
Takeaways
- Date-stamp every internal memo to the sanctions text then in force.
- Screen directors and banks again, not once when operations stopped.
- Administrative is a defined category — not a feeling.
This is not legal advice. See the legal notice and the sanctions framework.