The Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed on Thursday 17 September the 2018 ruling of the General Court of the EU rejecting the appeal filed by the Russian oil and gas company Rosneft against EU sanctions imposed after Russia's annexation of the Crimea (Case C-732/18 P).
EU sanctions against Russian oil and gas companies, including bans on exports to the EU and restrictions on access to capital markets, date back to July 2014. They were confirmed by the Court in March 2017 (Case C-72/15) (see EUROPE 11756/32).
According to the Court, the General Court rightly held that the EU Council was not required to justify the restrictive measures taken in a specific and concrete manner, and that the sanctions do indeed fulfil the objective of increasing the costs of Russia's actions undermining Ukraine's sovereignty. Being majority-owned by the Russian State, Rosneft could also not reasonably have been unaware of the reasons why the disputed restrictions had been imposed on it.
Finally, the Court found that the European sanctions were compatible with the EU/Russia Partnership Agreement signed in June 1994 in Corfu (Decision 97/800 of October 1997) and with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) at the WTO.
See judgment: https://bit.ly/2ZGSRKL (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)