us-sanctions 18 July 2019

EU Court annuls Yanukovych sanctions

The General Court of the European Union, has, in a series of joint cases, annulled asset-freezes against what it described as ‘seven members of the former Ukrainian ruling class, including Viktor Yanukovych [pictured], former President of Ukraine.’

In an explanatory document, the court said that the Council of the European Union had frozen the funds in March 2014, in response to the crisis in Ukraine at the time, with the Council describing the seven at that time as having been ‘responsible for the misappropriation of Ukrainian state funds,’ on the grounds that they were ‘subject to criminal proceedings in Ukraine to investigate crimes in connection with the embezzlement of Ukrainian State funds and their illegal transfer outside Ukraine.’

The annulment extends to the entirety of the period for which the sanctions were imposed.

In making its judgment the court said that, ‘applying the case-law principles…[it] recalls that the EU judicature must review the lawfulness of all EU acts in the light of fundamental rights. In that connection, although the Council can base the adoption or maintenance of restrictive measures on a decision of a third State, it must itself verify that, in particular, the rights of the defence and the right to effective judicial protection were complied with at the time of the adoption of the decision.’

It said that it found that the statement of reasons for the Council’s acts extending the restrictive measures ‘does not include a single reference to the fact that the Council verified compliance with such rights,’ and thus, none of the information contained in the letters from the Ukrainian authorities on which the Council based its decision to maintain the restrictive measures ‘makes it possible to consider that the Council had sufficient information to verify that those rights had been complied with.’

 

The judgments are:
T-244/16 Yanukovych v Council, T-285/17 Yanukovych v Council, Joint cases T-245/16 and T-286/17 Yanukovych v Council and cases T-274/18 Klymenko v Council, T-284/18 Arbuzov v Council, T-285/18 Pshonka v Council, T-289/18 Pshonka v Council and T305/18 Klyuyev v Council