BitRiver, Labadvance, VizorLabs and Atom project operator fall under EU ban on transactions with RDIF

MOSCOW. July 21 (Interfax) - The European Union has revealed the names of four companies affected by the ban on transactions with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) under a new restrictive mechanism, which has become part of the 18th package of anti-Russian sanctions.

On Friday, the EU announced a ban on any transactions with RDIF, "its sub-funds and companies," and an instrument to apply this ban to specific companies in which RDIF has invested and persons providing investment and financial services to RDIF. The Council will select companies affected by this type of sanctions.

According to information published in the Official Journal of the EU in the early hours of Saturday, the first companies affected by the transaction ban under this mechanism are Kama (operator of the Atom electromobile project), VizorLabs (Russian developer of industrial computer VizorLabs), BitRiver (operator of data centers for energy-intensive calculations) and Labadvance (Skolkovo resident, developer of a lab system for predicting the effectiveness of methods for increasing oil recovery based on microfluid research).

RDIF announced partnership with all of the above-mentioned companies last year. Partnership with three of them was announced during one event (the BRICS Business Forum held in Moscow in October).

RDIF will continue working on investing in promising Russian companies and promoting them on external markets, RDIF head Kirill Dmitriev said, commenting on the EU sanctions.

The EU introduced the first restrictions on RDIF back in March 2022. The EU then banned co-investment with RDIF as part of a package of anti-Russian sanctions. It was also stated that relevant bodies could allow co-investment with RDIF on conditions that they found acceptable if the obligations followed from contracts signed before March 2, 2022.