By Francesco Guarascio and Jan Strupczewski

BRUSSELS – The European Commission wants to make it easier to confiscate assets linked to serious illegal activities and suspected criminals, including those evading European Union sanctions against the Kremlin, according to a draft document seen by Reuters.

The legislative proposal, due to be published on Wednesday and still subject to changes, is aimed at addressing a longstanding weakness in the EU where many states lack sufficiently robust legal frameworks to seize criminal assets, making it easier for criminals to hide their resources and benefit from illegal activities.

The war in Ukraine further exposed this weakness, as many states are struggling to freeze assets of people sanctioned by the EU for their ties to the Kremlin – and many more lack legal powers to confiscate frozen assets.

The legislative proposal would address these weaknesses by creating a common legal framework.

Crimes for which the new rules would apply are terrorism, participation in a criminal organisation, human trafficking, money laundering, and also the violation of EU sanctions, which under a separate proposal, also to be published on Wednesday, would become a crime across the EU.

Asset seizures would generally require a conviction, but under the draft law, they could be allowed pending trial in some cases for suspected criminals, and also when they are “transferred by a suspected or accused person to third parties,” including family members.

Authorities in EU states have said one of the main obstacles they faced in enforcing the sanctions against Moscow was that affected people had their assets registered under somebody else’s name, or transferred them before sanctions were implemented.

“We are working on a European tool to make confiscations possible everywhere in all EU states”, the EU justice commissioner Didier Reynders said while pre-announcing the incoming measures earlier in May. He said one of the ultimate aims was to redistribute proceeds from these confiscations to Ukraine.

To become law, the proposal needs the backing of EU governments, which have traditionally been cautious about reforms that require changes to their criminal laws.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)

PARIS -Police on Tuesday raided McKinsey’s Paris office in relation to an investigation into suspected tax fraud, the financial prosecutor’s office said.

The investigation into the U.S. management consultancy was triggered after the French Senate in March alleged that the firm was not paying corporate taxes in France.

McKinsey denies any wrongdoing.

“The company cooperates fully with public authorities, as it has always done,” McKinsey said in a statement, in which it confirmed Tuesday’s raid.

“McKinsey reaffirms that it complies with the French tax and social rules applicable to it.”

The use of private consultants by President Emmanuel Macron’s government emerged as an unexpected issue ahead of the presidential election in France in April which Macron won.

The opposition had accused Macron’s government of spending too much on international consultancies that pay little or no tax in France.

A report by the French Senate in March said French ministries more than doubled spending on outside consultants from 379 million euros ($405.57 million) in 2018 to 894 million euros last year.

The Senate report also said that McKinsey, which has been present in France since 1964 and has its office on Paris’ prestigious Champs-Elysees, had not paid corporate taxes in France over the last ten years.

McKinsey at the time referred to its statement that said its French arm had paid out 422 million euros in taxes and social charges from 2011 to 2020.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Tassilo Hummel and Juliette Portala. Writing by Ingrid Melander. Editing by Richard Lough and Jane Merriman)

DOHA – The Qatar Investment Authority cannot exit the Russian market and is waiting to assess its position there because of the Ukraine crisis, one of the sovereign wealth fund’s chief investment officers said on Tuesday.

Moscow placed restrictions on foreign investors trading Russian assets in March, saying it wanted to ensure decisions to exit were considered and not driven by political pressure, after Russia sent troops into Ukraine.

“We can’t do much in Russia…We have to really assess where to stand on those opportunities there. I think it is a very difficult position for us, being an investor with one name,” said Ahmed Ali Al-Hammadi, QIA’s chief investment officer for Europe, Russia and Turkey said in a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum.

QIA owns a 19% stake in Russian state-backed oil giant Rosneft, which Al-Hammadi said is the fund’s only holding “of significance” in Russia.

“We can’t (exit). All foreign investors are restricted from exiting,” Al-Hammadi said.

In March, Mubadala, Abu Dhabi’s second biggest sovereign fund, announced it was pausing investments in Russia because of the Ukraine crisis.

Qatar’s $300 billion sovereign wealth fund, which owns stakes in the London Stock Exchange and Iberdrola SA, has been diversifying its investments away from European markets, which Al-Hammadi said historically represent its biggest exposure.

Nevertheless, the fund is still eyeing smaller European opportunities.

“We’re looking at new, emerging, I would say growth-state tech companies. Some of them are quite small and fly below our radar, but we believe that we’re seeing a lot of determination from countries like France, Germany, Italy,” he said, adding that government support for such companies is appealing.

QIA also sees opportunities in Turkey, especially in companies that are able to mitigate their currency exposure, he said.

Losses this month have pushed Turkey’s lira back towards the record lows of 18.4 against the dollar which it hit in December after a series of interest rate cuts.

Fintech and companies investing in the energy transition represent the biggest investment opportunities for QIA, Al-Hammadi said.

Though the cryptocurrency market is “too big to ignore” it is too early for institutional investors to get directly involved, Al-Hammadi said.

Instead, QIA is considering investments in the technology underlying the market, such as blockchain and exchanges, he said.

(Reporting and writing by Andrew Mills in Doha, Editing by Louise Heavens)

By Sabrina Valle

(Reuters) -Brazil’s Petrobras alerted the government last week that diesel pumps could run dry this year if the oil company does not sell fuels at market prices, according to four people close to discussions and an internal presentation seen by Reuters.

Just days later, President Jair Bolsonaro fired the chief executive of Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as the state-controlled company is formally known.

Bolsonaro’s chief of staff said the president is “anguished” by rising fuel prices and the pricing policy at Petrobras needs to be more aligned with the government’s thinking.

As Brazil enters a crucial window to secure diesel supplies, Petrobras management warned last week that the firm and other importers would struggle to secure diesel amid the most severe shortage of the fuel in 14 years, the sources said.

Analysts, private importers and officials at oil regulator ANP have echoed those concerns, said people familiar with the talks, who requested anonymity to discuss the politically sensitive matter.

The Petrobras presentation flagged the risk of shortage in the third quarter, when diesel demand surges seasonally in both the United States and Brazil, a major grains exporter expected to start shipping a bumper corn crop in August.

“If there is no signal of market prices ahead, there is material risk of a diesel shortage during the peak of demand during the harvest season, affecting Brazil’s GDP,” Petrobras said in the presentation titled “Fuels: challenges and solutions” and dated May 2022.

Petrobras did not respond to a request for comment.

Diesel supply has become a global concern since sanctions against Russia reshaped fuel trade and sent international inventories to historic lows. Importing countries are sizing up the risk of both rising costs and supply running short, as the industry shuts refineries for repairs or to cut carbon emissions.

Concerns in Brazil about diesel imports in the second half of the year rose after U.S. Gulf refiners, its major suppliers, started redirecting cargoes to Europe, two of the sources said.

“Global diesel inventories are far below the historic average,” Petrobras said in the presentation shared with the Ministry of Mines and Energy. “Petrobras alone cannot solve the global rise of energy prices.”

Energy Minister Adolfo Sachsida on Friday called oil analysts to ask about diesel shortages in the second half of the year, said a person directly involved in the matter. The ministry did not respond to a comment request.

“If Petrobras stops selling diesel at international prices for more than two or three weeks, there is a chance pumps will run dry,” a top executive from a large diesel producer said.

SUGGESTING SUBSIDIES

Executives at Petrobras, whose bylaws bar it from selling fuel at a loss without compensation, suggested in the presentation that Brazil could cut taxes or otherwise subsidize fuels to consumers, citing the example of several European Union nations.

Fuel subsidies cost Brazil about 7.5 billion reais ($1.6 billion) in 2018, when former President Michel Temer implemented them for a few months to halt a national trucker protest.

The cost of a similar measure this year could surpass 60 billion reais, estimated one of the people close to the discussions.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent crude oil prices to a 14-year high. This month, global shortages led diesel traders to pay a premium of more than $50 per barrel.

At their maximum, Brazilian diesel inventories can cover about a month of national demand. At Petrobras, supplies are at about half capacity, according to two sources.

Brazil books cargoes in June for the August-October harvest season, when most grains reach port via long trucking routes.

The company has begun turning to more distant providers in Western Africa and India, one of the sources said. But while a Gulf diesel cargo takes two to three weeks to arrive in Brazil, a ship from India could take 45-60 days.

“If refineries in the U.S. get damaged during the hurricane season, or anything else contributes to a tighter market, we could be in real trouble,” a Petrobras executive said on condition of anonymity.

($1 = 4.79 reais)

(Reporting by Sabrina Valle in Houston; Editing by Brad Haynes, Christopher Cushing, Kirsten Donovan and Louise Heavens)