Harrods bans Russian shoppers over GBP 300

In the latest fallout of the Russian-Ukraine crisis, some super rich Russian shoppers who love shopping for high-end luxury goods at the famous Harrods store in central London have been issued a spending limit, a media report said on Sunday.

According to The Telegraph, the department store in Knightsbridge has contacted Russian customers and warned that it will no longer sell luxury goods worth more than GBP 300. The move is in order to comply with a series of sanctions imposed by the UK government in response to Russia's conflict with Ukraine.

The paper said that the UK authorities have introduced additional regulations as part of their ongoing sanctions against Russia, which specifically target the sale of luxury goods.

The regulations want to prevent the supply of many luxury goods over certain values, generally around GBP 300, to individuals who are currently or ordinarily in Russia, it reads.

The email says it has been given a link to the new regulations and encourages the customer to review it. Harrods must look at its customer information in order to identify customers who appear by reference to the country or phone number that they have provided to us and might be in Russia to comply with these regulations.

We have identified you as someone who may currently reside in Russia, based on this information. If this is correct, this means you are subject to the regulations and we will not be able to supply you with any restricted luxury goods.

Since the invasion, the UK government has sanctioned or designated more than 1,000 Russian individuals and 100 entities, including oligarchs with a net global worth of over GBP 117 billion.

The sanctions prevents any UK citizen or business in the UK from dealing with any funds or economic resources that are owned, held or controlled by the designated person.

In March, shortly after the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the UK banned luxury exports to Russia and imposed new import tariffs on key Russian products. The British government had issued a call for all UK-based companies to think very carefully about investments in Russia over the ongoing Ukrainian conflict.

In order to make sure we are complying with these restrictions, we reviewed our database to identify potential customers and asked them to notify Harrods if the information we hold is not accurate and current. In a statement from Harrods, the statement said that this was not based on nationality, but address contact details or previous transaction delivery data.

We want to inform customers on how it may limit their ability to shop at Harrods and to make sure wider customers are not affected by the regulations. The statement said that we were happy that we were able to take this action and support customers in making sure they are aware of recent government regulations.