In February 2022, the Cyprus office of accounting giant PwC enabled the transfer of $1.4 billion on behalf of Alexey Mordashov, the primary shareholder of Russia’s largest steel and mining company, just as he was about to be hit by EU sanctions. The transfer wasn’t fully effective until March 2022, raising the possibility that PwC breached fresh EU sanctions against Mordashov. PwC had been working with Mordashov since the early 2000s and, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, helped him administer a holding company tied to more than 65 shell companies in fiscal havens. PwC also helped move assets belonging to metals magnates Alexander Abramov and Alexander Frolov ahead of UK sanctions. According to ICIJ, the auditing firm was engaged with at least 12 of the 25 Russian oligarchs sanctioned at the time of the 2014 annexation of Crimea. But it only terminated its business activities in Russia and “ordered its affiliates to stop working for sanctioned clients” two months after the invasion of Ukraine.