THE public debate in the west about whether sanctions levelled against Russia are working is inevitably complex, but ultimately is immaterial to most companies struggling to comply with them. The point is that sanctions are growing in volume and complexity and, given their political popularity, they are not going to be disappearing any time soon.

This week’s edition of the Lloyd’s List Podcast takes a look at how the operational requirement to stay on the right side of an increasingly complex compliance landscape is reshaping the way that shipping businesses operate.

Because shipping is struggling. While the finance sector may have invested billions of dollars on sanctions compliance capabilities over the past decade, large swathes of the shipping industry have not kept pace. And with Russian sanctions now reaching across the corporate spectrum like never before, a compliance crisis looms for many.

Helping us navigate our way across the minefield of sanctions and understand what’s driving these changes, we are joined this week by two leading experts:

• Leigh Hansson is a partner in the Global Regulatory Enforcement group at Reed Smith and a leading lawyer in the International Trade & National Security team.

• Agathe Demarais is the global forecasting director of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). She was previously a senior policy adviser for the French Treasury in Russia and Lebanon, working directly on sanctions and other economic and financial issues. She has recent published Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against US Interests