A luxury French retailer has pulled out of Russia days after saying it would stay open to protect employees

• L’Occitane announced on Friday that it would be closing its Russian in a sudden U-turn.
• The cosmetics group previously said it would keep its 110 Russian stores open to protect employees.
• It intends to continue paying both its Russian and Ukrainian employees as stores remain closed.

A luxury French beauty retailer has performed a sudden u-turn by closing its Russian operations a few days after saying it would stay open.

It marks the latest battle between Western governments and private companies. 

L’Occitane, a cosmetics company with 133 stores in the US, released a statement on Friday saying it was closing its stores and e-commerce website in Russia, having previously limited its actions to halting investment and expansion plans in the country. 

“Given the enormous human suffering being caused by escalating military action in Ukraine and to protect our employees worldwide from potential public aggression, we have decided to close our own stores and e-commerce websites in Russia,” L’Occitane said in a statement.

L’Occitane did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment outside normal working hours.

According to the company’s latest interim annual report, L’Occitane operated 110 shops in Russia, while the country accounted for 3% of its total sales.

The company made a total of $735 million in sales in the first half of its 2022 financial year and sold $23.6 million of items in Russia. 

The Friday statement followed an announcement on Tuesday by L’Occitane that the company would not close its stores in Russia as they could not confirm their 700 employees in the country would not face retaliation as a result of the potential exit. 

L’Occitane said it would continue to pay the salaries of both its Russian and Ukrainian employees. 

Firms that have continued to operate in Russia as most pull out are facing strong criticism from governments in the West. A number of companies have scaled back operations without completely ceasing trading.

A database developed by Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld at Yale University’s School of Management shows all the companies still operating in Ukraine. Fashion brand Lacoste and US IT company Cloudflare are among those listed as “digging in”.

US president Joe Biden has attempted to limit the activity of US investors and companies in Russia, signing an executive order on April 6 banning “new investment in the Russian Federation by a United States person, wherever located.”