EU Court Grants 1 Sanctions Annulment Request, Rejects 2 More

The EU General Court on Dec. 20 granted Russian business executive Sergei Mndoiants' request to annul his placement on the Russia sanctions list. The court also rejected similar requests from oligarchs Roman Abramovich and Vadim Nikolaevich Moshkovich.

Mndoiants was sanctioned in April 2022 for serving as executive vice president for government relations for telecommunications and information technology company AFK Sistema PAO, vice president of consulting company VML Invest and a director of a Russian think tank, the Foreign and Defense Policy Council. He was relisted in March 2023 for being a former vice president of Sistema and of VLM Invest.

The court said the European Council failed to show that Mndoiants had any influence over Sistema after leaving in 2012 or that he was a leading businessperson in Russia, according to an unofficial translation. The court said the EU needed to prove that the "economic activities" of Mndoiants "are of a certain importance or that his capital holdings are of a certain magnitude."

Abramovich was sanctioned in February 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The court said the council correctly designated Abramovich because of his close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and because of his position as a major shareholder in the Evraz steel group, which supported the Russian steel industry.

The court also rejected Abramovich's claim alleging a violation of the "principles of equal treatment and proportionality" because he didn't explain why his supposed lack of influence on the "allocation of Russian tax revenue and on the allocation of the proceeds of Evraz's activities" infringes on the equal treatment principle, the court said. On the proportionality claim, the court said the designation wasn't "manifestly disproportionate" to their goal of resolving the Ukraine conflict.

Moshkovich was sanctioned in March 2022 for his work in the agriculture and real estate sectors and his founding of pork, fats and sugar manufacturing company the Rusagro Group. The council correctly designated Moshkovich because he was a "leading businessperson involved in economic sectors providing a substantial source of revenue to the Government of the Russian Federation," the court ruled.