The owner of Bosco di Ciliegi has revealed his new residency. Mikhail Kusnirovich remains a Russian citizen, this will not bring any changes for the company, but it may give him the opportunity to open a business in a formally “neutral” country
Founder of the Bosco di Ciliegi Group (specializing in the sale of luxury goods and running the capital’s GUM) Mikhail Kusnirovich received residency status in Switzerland on November 1, 2022. It became known from the materials of the British Investments Global Ltd controlled by Kusnirovich published in the state register of legal entities of Great Britain.
About the previous tax residency of Mikhail Kusnirovich in the documents is not additionally reported. But in the middle of March 2022, it became known that the entrepreneur received Italian citizenship – he has long-standing commercial and cultural ties with Italy. The businessman did not renounce his Russian citizenship: according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, he is still a citizen of Russia (acquisition of another citizenship by a Russian citizen, according to the law, does not entail termination of Russian citizenship).
Bosco di Ciliegi clarified that no additional structural changes are expected for the company in connection with the change in the personal residency status of its founder in the future.
To obtain the status of a resident in Switzerland it is necessary to conclude a tax agreement with the authorities of one of the Swiss cantons, says Yuri Fedyukin, managing partner of Enterprise Legal Solutions. This option means that the foreign citizen is obliged to pay a fixed amount of tax annually. It varies from canton to canton: the most prestigious regions of Switzerland, according to the lawyer, may impose a tax of 500 thousand Swiss francs a year (more than 31 million rubles at the exchange rate of Swiss franc to ruble on Thursday, November 3).
A foreign citizen who has received residency status gets the right to live in the country with his whole family and can have business abroad but has no right to work in Switzerland. “Such residency can be the starting point for further obtaining a residence permit (residence permit – RBC) in this country and citizenship. I assume that the main way in the case of a businessman is opening a business in one of the cantons,” Fedyukin argues.
Switzerland is not a member of the European Union, but it is a part of the Schengen agreement, which provides for cancellation of border controls between 26 European countries. There are also agreements on cooperation in the field of economy, finance and security signed between the EU and Switzerland in 1999 and 2004 (they, in particular, provide for a simplified procedure of mutual admission of goods to the markets of the countries).
Switzerland’s constitution states that it is a neutral country. In 2014, when the EU imposed sanctions against Russia after the annexation of Crimea, Switzerland did not formally join these measures, but imposed its own restrictions to prevent it from circumventing EU sanctions on its territory.
But in 2022, Swiss authorities supported the anti-Russian sanctions imposed by EU countries after the start of the military special operation in Ukraine. In particular, in March, Switzerland joined the fourth package of EU sanctions against Russia, which includes a ban on exports of luxury goods – including clothing, shoes, accessories, jewelry and watches over €300 each. Joining the country to the sanctions against Russia violates the constitution, said Andrea Somer, spokeswoman for the Democratic Union Center (UDC) party of the Swiss parliament.