Kenneth P. Vogel

Congressional Democrats had tried to block the move this month, assailing it as a capitulation to the Kremlin and a key ally of President Vladimir Putin. But they failed to win enough Republican support to enforce the sanctions.

The Treasury Department had announced the sanctions against Deripaska, six other oligarchs and their companies in April as retaliation for Russia’s “malign activity” around the world.

Most of the sanctions went into effect, including against Deripaska personally. But their implementation was repeatedly delayed against Deripaska’s giant aluminum company, Rusal, as well as two linked firms, including EN+, the holding company that owned much of Rusal. The companies financed a sophisticated legal and lobbying campaign arguing that the sanctions would disrupt the aluminum market and damage companies in the United States and allied countries.

Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, was sensitive to that argument. He clarified that the goal of the sanctions was “to change the behavior” of Deripaska, and “not to put Rusal out of business,” given the company’s pivotal role as a global supplier of aluminum.

The Treasury Department announced a deal last month to lift the sanctions in exchange for a restructuring that it said would reduce Deripaska’s control and ownership of the companies.

Yet a confidential, legally binding document detailing the agreement showed that Deripaska and his allies would retain majority ownership of EN+.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, who has been among the leading critics of the deal, said that allowing it to take effect “represents just one more step in undermining the sanctions law, which President Trump has obstructed at every opportunity, while Russian aggression remains unabated.”

But EN+ said in a statement that Sunday’s move was “a victory for the U.S. sanctions policy, successfully punishing the target but not at the expense of shareholders, employees and the wider market.”

After the sanctions were officially lifted, EN+ announced the appointment of seven new directors under the deal, including Christopher Bancroft Burnham, a banker who served on President Donald Trump’s State Department transition team and worked in George W. Bush’s State Department.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/27/us/politics/trump-russia-sanctions-deripaska.html" id="db7b0b35-d864-3d26-a676-7a24a9cd5fc8">The New York Times</a>.

The Trump administration on Sunday lifted sanctions against the business empire of Oleg Deripaska, one of Russia’s most influential oligarchs.

Treasury Dept. Lifts Sanctions on Russian Oligarch's Companies

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Kenneth P. Vogel

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Treasury Dept. Lifts Sanctions on Russian Oligarch's Companies

Treasury Dept. Lifts Sanctions on Russian Oligarch's Companies