It has emerged that a Russian governmental decree has censored the country's Unified State Register of Legal Entities in the case of bodies corporate that operate in the Crimea. Commentators are speculating that President Valdimir Putin might be trying, by this means, to turn the Crimea into Russia's answer to Delaware.

The legislation in question is the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 06.06.2019 No 729 "On the determination of cases in which access to information (documents containing information) on a legal entity contained in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities may be restricted."

A political journalist called Georgiy Alburov wrote on Twitter on 17 June: "From tomorrow, the data on the leaders/founders of ALL companies registered in the Crimea/Sevastopol and even companies that have a branch there are removed from the Incorporation. All tenders will begin to go to 'Crimean' companies, about which nothing will be known (and it will be impossible to know); all the most corrupt schemes will pass through the Crimea."

Ukrinform.net states that the decree, signed by Prime Minister Medvedev, allows the Government to cut off public access to information in the register in three cases:

• when a foreign government is imposing sanctions on a company;
• when a company is authorised by a bank to fulfil a state defence order; and
• if a company is located, operates or is registered in the Crimea.

By way of example, Kharon.com reports that a corporation called Production Association Urals Optical & Mechanical Plant, which had previously declared its majority owner to be the laser production firm of Aktsionernoe Obshchestvo Shvabe, declined in its latest quarterly earnings report to divulge any information about its directors or shareholders. It reportedly justified this by invoking the decree, although it gave the decree's date as 4 April and suggested that this was the first of two, the latter coming this month.

The mention of sanctions is very significant because most shares in Aktsionernoe Obshchestvo Shvabe are held by Rostec, the Russian defence giant that President Obama sanctioned in 2014. Indeed, the two decrees now serve to shield the beneficial owners of many banks and wealth management firms that previously relied on the register to 'screen' customers for the purposes of sanctions.