The Isle of Man Treasury Minister, David Ashford MBE MHK, has revealed that only a relatively trivial value of Russian assets have been frozen in the Isle of Man as a result of the introduction of sanctions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In response to questioning from fellow Member for Douglas North, John Wanneburgh MHK, Ashford revealed that £1.9 million in assets were frozen. By contrast, the crown dependency of Jersey has reportedly frozen more than 2,800 times (!!!) more Russian assets than the Isle of Man, with £5.4 billion being reportedly frozen in the Channel Island. Along similar lines, Switzerland has reportedly frozen approximately £8 billion in assets, and the United Kingdom Government has claimed at least an “estimated £15 billion sanction hit” against Russian oligarchs.

At this stage, it is unclear how many Russian assets are vulnerable to Manx sanctions: it is plausible that there were simply very few sanctioned Russian assets subject to Manx jurisdiction.

Minister Ashford claimed that a further 22 aircraft and 49 pleasure craft (boats) have been deregistered from Manx registries.

Source Documents

At the time of writing, the Tynwald Hansard has not yet published its record of the Minister’s answer to the House of Keys. Tynwald is likely to publish the answers online here in due course.

In the meantime, audio of the Minister’s answers has been published by Manx Radio: