Uncovering Russian trust management agreements: not an alternative to Russian private foundations

Abstract

A Russian trust management arrangement is a contract for managing third party assets and cannot be mirrored with common law trusts since Russian law is not familiar with the concept of beneficial ownership. Russian trust management agreements are mainly used for managing portfolios of securities by regulated Russian asset managers, for managing Russian real estate and for the short-term management of assets falling into the estate of a deceased person during the probation period. Not suitable for exclusive succession planning purposes, trust management thus cannot be an alternative to Russian hereditary foundations which were specifically launched in Russian law in 2018 as post-mortem local foundations, and whose use remains to be seen in practice.