Friday

8th Dec 2023

Russian oligarchs spam EU court with sanctions cases

  • EU judges in Luxembourg have final say on sanctions challenges (Photo: Peter Teffer)
Listen to article

Russian oligarchs on the hook for the war in Ukraine are lining up in the EU court in Luxembourg with challenges to sanctions.

But the last Russian who tested the system — catering baron and the boss of the mercenary Wagner Group Yevgeniy Prigozhin — just lost, in a poor omen for their luck.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

Russian oligarchs or their family members under asset-freezes and visa-bans appear to have lodged at least 18 cases in the EU general court in Luxembourg since the war began, records indicate.

The number is likely higher because some plaintiffs ask the court to publish just their initials in the first stage of the process, obscuring their identity.

And EU officials expect the figure to climb higher still given that Europe has blacklisted some 40 members of Russia's top business families since the invasion.

There was a rumour in EU circles that Russian president Vladimir Putin has instructed every one of them to launch cases to "fatigue" EU institutions, one European source said.

"If it's true, it won't work. I mean, that's what the [EU] court's there for," the source added.

The pending cases are currently published only under the plaintiffs' surnames, making it impossible to be quite sure who they are.

But cross-referencing the surnames with the EU sanctions list suggests the 18 plaintiffs include ex-football chief Roman Abramovich, banker Mikhail Fridman, steel billionaire Alexey Mordashov, investment fund boss Igor Shuvalov, ex-oil magnate Gennady Timchenko, and metals tycoon Alisher Usmanov.

EU sanctions challenges and related appeals can take years to settle.

Plaintiffs are allowed to use their otherwise EU-frozen funds to pay for their costs.

The EU lost a string of high-profile cases on Belarus asset-freezes in recent years, including against former president Viktor Yanukovych and former prime minister Mykola Azarov.

It tended to lose on grounds of lack of evidence.

And EU lawyers are handicapped by the fact their "evidence packages" cannot contain classified information that EU capitals who approved the listings might have seen.

But the victories tend to ring hollow.

Yanukovych, for instance, is still under an asset-freeze because he faced multiple layers of sanctions and stripped away just one.

The Luxembourg court never awards financial damages.

Businessmen's shady dealings are laid bare in hearings and judgments and their reputations are tainted by the original EU slur even if they win.

Meanwhile, the last Russia verdict also showed that open source information, including quality journalism, is often enough for judges to uphold EU decisions.

Putin's chef

The EU blacklisted Prigozhin, a Kremlin-linked catering tycoon, before the Ukraine war on grounds his mercenary crew, the Wagner Group, had committed horrors in Libya.

Prigozhin's lawyers said most of the evidence the EU had submitted was "information disseminated in the media".

There was "no evidence obtained independently by the [EU] Council or on its behalf" and no sign "that the Council carried out any investigation as to the accuracy of that information", they said.

Reports in Amsterdam-based media Bellingcat and Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RFL), for instance, were biased because they had received US funds, Prigozhin's lawyers added.

The EU judges said the reporting stood on its own merit, however.

The stories by Bellingcat, RFE/RFL, the BBC and others were "precise and consistent and are the result of investigations based on serious and in-depth research", they said in their verdict on Wednesday (1 June).

And, as in past cases, the judgement shed light on activities that the plaintiff might have preferred to keep out of the public eye.

The verdict bluntly rehearsed and endorsed EU allegations that Wagner Group is Prigozhin's "private army" even though he has tried to hide it by using an "opaque" structure of "similarly named and interlinked shell companies".

Geopolitical thuggery

Wagner Group was financed by Kremlin money diverted from Prigozhin's catering and construction contracts for the Russian military, the EU court paper said.

Wagner Group had "between 800 and 1,500 operatives and mercenaries in Libya" and had also fought in Ukraine, Syria, and the Central African Republic, the court said in passing.

Prigozhin played a "role in Russian geopolitics" and "Wagner Group provides the 'muscle' to defend them", the verdict text noted.

"The expansion of Wagner Group's operations in Africa [is] in order to protect the applicant's investments [there]," the EU court also said, citing a report by the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a US think-tank.

US envoy: Putin 'humiliated himself' in Ukraine

Russian president Vladimir Putin has "humiliated himself" by his conduct in the war and the West wanted to see him defeated on the battlefields of Ukraine, America's EU ambassador has said.

Latest News

  1. EU suggests visa-bans on Israeli settlers, following US example
  2. EU ministers prepare for all-night fiscal debate
  3. Spain's Nadia Calviño backed to be EIB's first female chief
  4. Is there hope for the EU and eurozone?
  5. Crunch talks seek breakthrough on EU asylum overhaul
  6. Polish truck protest at Ukraine border disrupts war supplies
  7. 'Green' banks lend most to polluters, reveals ECB
  8. Tense EU-China summit showdown unlikely to bear fruit

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  3. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  4. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?
  5. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis autumn Europalia arts festival is all about GEORGIA!
  6. UNOPSFostering health system resilience in fragile and conflict-affected countries

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. European Citizen's InitiativeThe European Commission launches the ‘ImagineEU’ competition for secondary school students in the EU.
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersThe Nordic Region is stepping up its efforts to reduce food waste
  3. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  4. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersGlobal interest in the new Nordic Nutrition Recommendations – here are the speakers for the launch
  6. Nordic Council of Ministers20 June: Launch of the new Nordic Nutrition Recommendations

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us