Patrushev's house / navalny.com
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) has submitted a bill for consideration of the Russian government with the aim to classify data on owners of real estate, aircraft and vessels, Russian information agency RBC reported.
Except the right holders and their representatives, access to such information will only be granted to "competent national authorities."
On Monday, October 5, the Government Commission on legislation supported the project, according to participants of the meeting familiar with its results. Now the bill is to be considered at a government meeting, and then it will be submitted for consideration by the State Duma.
Currently, information from the Unified State Register of Immovable Property Rights and Related Transactions is publically available. The FSB proposes limiting access to all such data, including information of property owners.
Such an initiative could hamper access to information on real owners of property, "such as corrupt officials," says Roman Rubanov, director of Anti-Corruption Foundation. He suggested that such move might be associated with the fact that the property in Serebryany Bor [large forest park in North-west Moscow] worth about RUB 1.1 billion was discovered to be owned by former FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev.
According to Alexander Zakharov, partner at Paragon Advice Group, those propert owners who seek to remain anonymous, had previously registered property items in offshore companies, the instrument, which currently has become partly unavailable due to de-offshorization and the sanctions policy of the West.
The FSB proposals will shield particularly sensitive information on property owners from becoming public. For example, Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation often refers in its corruption-related investigations to extracts from the Unified State Register.