The Court of the European Union has dismissed appeals by five Russian billionaires seeking to overturn a previous ruling that upheld sanctions against them.
Dmitry Mazepin, Dmitry Pumpyanskiy, Tigran Khudaverdyan, Viktor Rashnikov, and German Khan had previously challenged EU sanctions before the European court. In 2023, the court refused to annul the decision of the Council of the European Union imposing restrictive measures. The businessmen appealed that ruling, but today the court dismissed their appeals.
The press release notes that the Russian government derives revenue from economic sectors rather than individual businessmen. At the same time, the concept of a businessperson’s influence should be considered independently of direct ties to the government. Since these businessmen play a significant role in the Russian economy, they “are likely to further, indirectly, the financing of destabilising actions against Ukraine, by contributing to maintaining the profitability, or the prosperity, of the economic sectors in which they are involved.”
“ In the present cases, the Court finds that there is an objective link between, on the one hand, important businesspersons involved in sectors that are lucrative for Russia and, on the other, the objective consisting in increasing the pressure exerted on that country and the costs of its actions to destabilise Ukraine,” the statement said.
The Court also noted that, in assessing the proportionality of sanctions, it is sufficient to determine that they are not manifestly inappropriate for achieving a legitimate objective and do not clearly exceed what is necessary to achieve that objective.
