Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has expanded the list of special economic sanctions to include a number of well-known IT companies and their Ukrainian affiliates, including Firma 1C, Parus, Softline Group, Galatiki Center and others.

According to Decree No. 133 signed May 15, 2017, which is based on the related decision of Ukraine's National Defense and Security Council on April 28, software companies LLC ABBYY and LLC ABBYY Ukraine Ltd have been added to the list.

The sanctions also impact limited liabily companies Intalev Ukraine (Kyiv), Documents Management (Moscow), System Integrator APO NVision Group, LLC Masterdata and JSC Ascon.

Pursuant to the decree, which will be in force for three years, the sanctions include blocking assets, temporary restrictions on the right of persons to use and distribute property, trading limitations, prevention of capital withdrawal from Ukraine, economic and financial obligation stoppages, limiting or stopping providing telecommunications services and using public telecommunications networks.

In addition, the sanctions prohibit the purchase of goods, work and services from the listed firms, suspension of permits issued to same, licenses to import to or export from Ukraine hard currency assets and limitations on card payments, a ban on technology transfer and on rights to intellectual property.

As earlier reported, Firma 1C software has dominated the market for use by small and medium-sized businesses. Firms which import 1C software deny active contacts with the Russian company and say the software has been localized. Similar statements have been made by Parus company representatives about IT systems, which are popular in Ukraine's government and commercial sector.