EU General Court Tosses Sanctions Damages Challenge

The European Union General Court dismissed a case from Iranian national Naser Bateni, who sought 250,000 euros in damages from his sanctions listings in 2011, 2012 and 2013, according to a July 7 judgment. Previous decisions from the court had annulled Bateni's listings for those years, finding that the European Council did not establish grounds that justified the designations and prompting the damages claim from Bateni. The court said that the council did not commit a "sufficiently serious breach" -- the standard for providing damages -- by relying on the information available to it when it made Bateni's sanctions determination. "The Council did not depart from the behavior which a normally prudent and diligent administration would have adopted," the judgment said. Bateni's appeal was "dismissed as being partly inadmissible and partly unfounded," according to an unofficial translation of the judgment.