The General Court of the EU annulled, on Wednesday 10 April, the European Council’s decision of February 2022 to include Petr Aven (case T-301/22) and Mikhail Fridman (case T-304/22), two of the main shareholders in the Alfa Group conglomerate - which includes one of Russia’s largest banks, Alfa Bank - on the list of persons sanctioned by the EU in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
At the time, the EU27 ruled that Mr Aven and Mr Fridman were “associated with persons also subject to restrictive measures and with Vladimir Putin himself”. The European Council also considered that the two men, a Russian-Latvian and a Russian-Israeli respectively, had provided “material or financial support to Russian decision-makers, and supported actions and policies that undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine”.
Their retention on the sanctions lists, alongside some 1,700 individuals and 400 companies currently listed, was agreed by the Council of the EU on 13 March 2023.
Referred to by the two Russian businessmen, the General Court ruled in their favour. It considered that the reasons given in the initial acts are not “sufficiently substantiated and that the inclusion of Mr Aven and Mr Fridman on the lists at issue was therefore not justified”.
The General Court also rejected the retention of the two oligarchs on the lists, as “no additional evidence” had been provided in the meantime.
To see the judgment (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/boi (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)