Noss pressures bankers, lawyers over Russian oligarch links

Tucows is putting pressure on its outside bankers, lawyers and accountants to come clean about their relationships with Russian oligarchs.

In a series of tweets on Saturday, CEO Elliot Noss said he’d emailed these longstanding partners to ask them about their policies with regards with regard oligarchs’ “essentially laundered” money.

The implication of course is that Tucows would be unhappy to work with any firms whose policies are found lacking.

Here’s the email, reconstructed from Noss’s tweets.

We are writing today because of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. We note our longstanding relationship with your firm.

We are asking you, and all of our professionals, about your firm’s policy regarding Russian clients, particularly those associated in any way with the current regime. As we imagine you know, most major Russian businesses are either directly or indirectly controlled or associated with the Russian regime. As you also likely know, the funds these companies and their principals, let’s just call them oligarchs, siphon off of these businesses are essentially laundered with the active support of major law firms, banks and accounting firms.

We do not expect you to respond with a firm policy immediately BUT we do expect you to confirm in writing that you have shared this request with your superiors in a way that will most effectively lead to action and we expect you to manage our expectations as to when we may know of your firm’s position.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Respectfully Yours,

Elliot Noss
CEO
Tucows Inc.

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