As of January 2024, more than 1950 Russian individuals and legal entities have been included in the European Union sanctions list as a result of measures taken by the European Union in connection with the situation in Ukraine. A number of individuals have been successfully removed from both the US, EU and Swiss sanctions list already. In this newsletter we will focus on the general legal framework for EU sanctions removal, specific recent successful cases and the LINDEMANNLAW expertise in this area.
1. What is the purpose of EU economic sanctions? When can persons be removed from the EU Sanctions list?
The primary objective of European Union imposing sanctions on a legal entity or an individual is to encourage to change behavior in line with the EU policy goals by that persons and companies. Economic sanctions are to be distinguished from criminal punishment. Accordingly, if it can be shown that the basis for the designation no longer applies, potentially the behavior may have already been changed at the time the sanctions have been imposed and respectively at the time that the person or company has been included in a sanctions list, the relevant person or company has to be removed from the European Union sanctions list. Successful cases of EU sanctions removal are typically businesspeople that do not or no longer support certain government activities, as well as family members or known contacts that do not or no longer support sanctioned actors.
2. Are law firms allowed to represent clients?
While the European Union and Swiss Confederation has taken to implement EU economic sanctions, European and Swiss law firms are not prohibited to provide legal representation for sanctioned Russian individuals. Lawyers are also allowed to provide legal services to Russian legal entities with respect to judicial, administrative or arbitral proceedings to maintain their access to justice.
3. What is the procedure to remove EU sanctions against an individual?
The EU Council emphasizes that a transparent and effective delisting procedure is essential to the credibility and legitimacy of sanctions.
✓ Petition to removal to the General Secretariat of the EU Council.
This specifically where the criteria for listing are no longer met, i.e. where relevant subsequent changes of facts or emergence of further evidence; prolongation of sanctions every 6 months may be stopped.
✓ Sanctions Measures are subject to judicial review in the courts of the member states.
✓ Judicial review by the General Court of First Instance of the European Union in Luxembourg.
Most successful grounds for challenges in court are incorrect factual claimes. In a number of cases the decision to sanction a person was based on 4-10 google links from questionable sources with internet machine translation.
✓ Appleals are decided by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg
4. How long does it take to remove EU sanctions?
The sanctions removal procedure can last as short as 4 months, the average duration is about one calendar year. The person known to have spent the least time under the EU sanctions is Saodat Narzieva, the sister of Alisher Usmanov, a Russian UHNWI with assets in Switzerland and other Western countries. She was added to the EU Sanctions lists in April 2022 but was removed by September 2022, resulting in a total sanction period of just four full months. Other successful cases lasted ca. 12 calendar months from the application to the CJEU decision on sanctions removal. In certain cases this may take longer depending on the circumstances and the complexity of the specific situation.
5. What successful precedents exist?
There are already a considerable number of successful precedents of removing of individuals from the EU and the US sanctions list. Below a non-exhaustive list:
EU
- Saodat Narzieva
- Olga Ayziman
- Dmitry Ovsyannikov
- Grigory Berezkin
- Alexander Shulgin
- Georgy Shuvaev† (deceased 2022)
- Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky † (deceased 2022)
- Alexey Chernyak
- Leonid Babashov
- Alexander Borodai
- Tatyana Lobach
- Alexander Mikhailovich Babakov
- Vladimir Abdualiyevich Vasilyev
- Alexei Konstantinovich Pushkov
- Vladislav Nikolaevich Deinego
- Mikhail Fridman
- Petr Aven
US
- Anatoly Karachinskiy (first Russian National to be removed from the U.S. SDN List following the Russian war in Ukraine on May 19, 2023)
- Andrey Golikov
- Elena Titova
- Natalya Alymova
- Paul Goldfinch
6. What are the benefits of a removal from the SDN list?
The mayor benefit is asset unfreezing after EU sanctions removal. The former designated person can freely manage all his or her assets. Especially bank accounts will be deblocked. In addition, the assets of companies controlled by the former designated person are unfrozen and can be used to conduct business.
7. Why LINDEMANNLAW?
✓ LINDEMANNLAW has experience with removals from EU, Swiss and US sanctions lists as we employ EU, Swiss and US lawyers.
✓ We have Russian-speaking lawyers in our team who work on sanctions removal cases and work with Russian-speaking clients for more than 12 years.
✓ We coordinate simultaneous removals from EU, Swiss and US sanctions lists.
✓ We have a specialized litigation team.
✓ Alongside with our team expertise, LINDEMANNLAW utilizes custom-tailored AI technology, internet resources and world intelligence databases that help to verify that the grounds for sanctions had no factual basis or were inaccurately assessed.
For more information, please feel free to contact us and we will be happy to help you.
