Виктор Шевцов. Архивное фото.
The General Court of the European Union has annulled sanctions imposed by the EU against Belarusian businessman Viktar Shautsou (Viktor Arkadievich Chevtsov), ruling that the Council of the EU failed to sufficiently substantiate the grounds for his inclusion on the sanctions list. At the same time, the court separately noted that in February 2026 the Council renewed the sanctions list and kept Chevtsov’s name on it until February 28, 2027. The legality of that new decision was not examined in these proceedings.
The judgment in case T-528/24 was delivered on April 22 in Luxembourg. The court annulled both the acts of July 26, 2024, by which Chevtsov was placed on the sanctions list, and the acts of February 24, 2025, by which those measures were extended.
Chevtsov filed his action on October 15, 2024 through lawyer Nicoleta Montag (formerly Nicoleta Tuominen). In the filing, his surname was rendered in Latin script in an unusual form — Viktor Arkadievich Chevtsov. He is a resident of Hungary.
The court said the Council had not provided a “sufficiently specific, precise and consistent body of evidence” to support its claims. These included allegations that Chevtsov benefited from the regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka through business in the holography sector, as well as later arguments related to his status as Honorary Consul of the Philippines in Belarus, alleged links to Reshenie Bank and the Dudutki museum complex.
The Council had initially argued that Chevtsov benefited from a monopoly in the field of security holograms artificially created by the Belarusian authorities. The court, however, found it established only that the businessman had interests in that sector at the time the sanctions were imposed. In the court’s view, the Council failed to prove either the existence of such a monopoly or that Chevtsov derived benefit from it.
When extending the sanctions, the Council later changed its reasoning. It argued that Chevtsov supported the Lukashenka regime as Honorary Consul of the Philippines in Belarus and benefited from it through connections with Reshenie Bank and the Dudutki complex. The General Court rejected these arguments as well, stating that the status of honorary consul in itself does not demonstrate support for the Belarusian authorities, and that the materials presented regarding the bank and the museum complex did not prove either Chevtsov’s current involvement or that he derived benefit from the Belarusian state budget.
The court stressed that in sanctions cases the burden of proof lies with the Council of the EU. In Chevtsov’s case, that obligation was not fulfilled, the court said.
As a result, the General Court annulled the contested acts insofar as they concerned Chevtsov and ordered the Council to pay the legal costs.
At the same time, the court separately noted that in February 2026 the Council of the EU renewed the sanctions list and kept Chevtsov’s name on it until February 28, 2027. The legality of that new decision was not examined in these proceedings.
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Chevtsov was placed under EU and Swiss sanctions in August 2024, three months after the release of a BRC investigation into the monopoly on the production of security holograms in Belarus. Investigators found that Chevtsov was one of the main beneficiaries of that business. In another investigation, BRC established that Chevtsov was linked to a company that was supposed to print passports of the “New Belarus”.
Journalists reported that the businessman was close to the Belarusian authorities: between 2008 and 2013 alone, they counted around 30 trips made by Chevtsov with officials and other associates of Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
He is known as an intermediary for the Belarusian state in dealings with authoritarian regimes. The Infobank he founded in 1994 specialised in servicing financial flows to Iraq, Libya and Iran. The US Department of the Treasury accused the bank of money laundering in favour of the regime of Saddam Hussein. The bank was later renamed Trustbank, and its subsidiary Belzarubezhstroy, with the support of Viktar Sheiman, carried out extensive activities in Venezuela during the Chávez era.
After sanctions were imposed in 2024, Chevtsov sought to protect his Belarusian business. In August of that year, the founder listed in the documents of one of his key assets — Technochimtrade Unitary Enterprise — was changed. The new owner of the company is listed as Maksim Lapikau. He can be described as a close associate of Chevtsov: since 2019 he has headed the businessman’s company Museum Complex of Ancient Folk Crafts and Technologies “Dudutki”, where he had previously worked as a driver.