Lee Buchheit
Lee Buchheit is an American lawyer specializing in international finance and sovereign debt restructuring. He served as a partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, where he led the firm's sovereign debt practice. He is best known for advising governments on major debt restructurings, including those of Greece and Ukraine in the 2010s, and has acted as a consultant to governments and international organizations on sovereign debt issues.
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Proposal would shift frozen Russian assets from Euroclear and Clearstream to a new EU custodian
A proposal presented in Brussels by political commentator Hugo Dixon and co-authors would transfer frozen Russian Central Bank accounts from national depositaries — including Euroclear in Belgium and Clearstream in Luxembourg — onto the balance sheet of a special EU instrument acting as custodian. The mechanism, modelled on the post-Saddam transfer of Iraqi Central Bank accounts, is designed to shield depositaries and Belgium from Russian lawsuits while creating legal and financial groundwork for eventually using the assets in Ukraine's interests. Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko has publicly backed revisiting the use of frozen Russian assets, citing an acute wartime budget deficit.