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Tigers Realm Coal (ASX:TIG) won’t be able to publish its latest financial report because it’s not receiving enough information from its Russian operations – the same operations Australian sanctions have forced it to sell.
But it is compliance with those sanctions that has led Tigers Realm to this situation, in its own words.
Interestingly, the company says it’s too busy being in constant contact with Canberra to get enough information from the Russian side of its structure.
“[The company] has been in continual contact with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in relation to the company’s compliance with the Autonomous Sanctions Act 2011,” Tigers Realm wrote on Friday.
“A critical factor in dealing with the Australian Sanctions Regime and taking all available steps to comply with the Regime means the TIG Directors are limited in communication and information flow from the Russian management group.
“As a consequence of this, and combined with the “locked box” mechanism… the company is unable to provide its Appendix 4E.”
That ‘locked box’ mechanism refers to a clause in the sale contract for its Russian assets that means “all revenue and benefit arising from the Russian subsidiaries is attributable to and for the benefit of the Buyer.”
That buyer, to remind, is a Kremlin-adjacent billionaire.
So in essence: Tigers Realm is to sell its Russian coal assets off to a figure who is not unlikely to end up redirecting revenues from those soon-to-be-formerly-Australian assets back to the Kremlin anyway.
It’s not overly conspiratorial, in my view, to predict those revenues, because of the buyer’s relationship with Russia’s government, would presumably be available to draw upon for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine – the reason why Australia whacked sanctions on in the first place.
So if you wanted to be cynical, you could say the sanctions are kind of pointless. But let’s not get too bogged down by that.
While the Federal Court ordered in April of last year, Tigers Realm needed to pawn off its Russian assets to comply with Australian sanctions, Russia introduced legislation later on last year to stem the flow of companies exiting Russia.
That too, according to Tigers Realm, is a factor leading to a situation where the company has not yet actually sold off its Russian assets, now approaching a year-long process.
TIG last traded at 0.3cps.
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