This is what happens after they’re seized

European governments that seized or the yachts and villas of Russian oligarchs now face a more difficult question: what to do with them?

The sanctions against Russian oligarchs imposed by the European Union, the UK, the U.S. and other countries unleashed a wave of asset freezes across Europe. Officials impounded a 213-foot yacht owned by Alexei Mordashov in Imperia, Italy, Igor’s Sechin’s 280-foot yacht in the French port of La Ciotat and Alisher Usmanov’s $18 million resort compound in Sardinia.

President Joe Biden warned the oligarchs in his State of the Union: “We are joining with our European allies to find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets. We are coming for your ill-begotten gains.”

Yet sanctions experts say freezing the assets is the simple part. Deciding what to do with them — and who gets the proceeds — is likely to be more challenging and could touch off court battles that drag on for years.

Laws vary by country. And the latest round of sanctions, which go further than any other coordinated global round of sanctions on individuals, create new legal questions that have yet to be answered.

“We’re in uncharted waters,” said Benjamin Maltby, partner at Keystone Law in the U.K. and an expert in yacht and luxury-asset law. “The situations we’re seeing now have never really occurred before.”

Legal experts say that generally, the sanctions themselves don’t allow countries to simply take ownership of oligarch’s boats, planes and homes. Under the sanctions announced by the U.S. and Europe, members of the Russian elite who “enriched themselves at the expense of the Russian people” and “aided Putin” in his invasion of Ukraine will have their assets “frozen and their property blocked from use.”

Under U.S. law and most laws in Europe, assets that are frozen remain under the ownership of the oligarch, but they can’t be transferred or sold. Sechin and Mordsahov, for instance, will continue to own their yachts, but they will be secured to the docks by the authorities and prevented from sailing off to safer shores.

To actually seize and take ownership of an oligarch’s yacht or villa, government prosecutors have to prove the property was part of a crime. Under U.S. civil forfeiture law, an asset “used to commit a crime” or that “represents the proceeds of illegal activity” may be seized only with a warrant.