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While L’Occitane no longer directly supplies its Russian partners, the French brand continues to be imported to Russia in significant quantities.L’Occitane’s former Russian subsidiary now belongs to local management. But the subsidiary has pledged shares to L’Occitane International as collateral and L’Occitane International has a call-option to buy the subsidiary back during a five-year period starting in June 2025.

L'Occitane's former subsidiary receives its cosmetics almost exclusively via one company, Smart Beauty LLC - a contrast from the typical scenario involving parallel imports, where numerous small suppliers are involved.Smart Beauty LLC was registered in Dubai in June 2022 - the same month L’Occitane announced its exit from Russia - and has shipped more than 900 tonnes of cosmetics to Russia, according to customs data.Dubai’s business registry does not show the identity of Smart Beauty’s owner. L’Occitane did not reply to Al Jazeera’s questions about whether it was aware of the importation of its products by its former subsidiary.

Tracing the supply chains of goods from a factory where they are produced to the shelf in Russia can be challenging as importers may use numerous intermediary companies across multiple countries.The owner of a Russian wholesale supplier of electronics who spoke on condition of anonymity told Al Jazeera that many front companies have been established in third countries specifically to organise parallel imports, sometimes by Russian importers and sometimes even by the brands themselves.

“Front companies established by brands would hardly speak to a new player whom they don’t know or answer an email inquiry,” he said.

“But the relationships between brands and retailers have been developed through years. It’s very tempting to use proxies and continue business.”Then, on May 28, the US government ramped up the row by ordering US companies which make software used to design semiconductors to

their goods and services to Chinese groups, The Financial Times reported.Design automation software makers, including Cadence, Synopsys and Siemens EDA, were told via letters from the US Commerce Department to stop supplying their technology to China.

Why is the US targeting Chinese semiconductors?The US has been tightening its export controls on semiconductors for more than a decade, contending that China has used US computer chips to improve military hardware and software.