An British court of appeals declined to hear one appeal, and found in favor of the government in another, in cases regarding U.K. sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
The EU General Court last week rejected Belarusian nitrogen compound producer Grodno Azot's application for delisting from the EU's sanctions regime on Belarus.
The EU General Court on Feb. 7 dismissed sanctions removal applications from Russians Alisher Usmanov and Igor Shuvalov, according to an unofficial translation.
Hesai Technology, the largest Chinese lidar company by sales, plans to sue the Pentagon for adding it to a list of companies with ties to China’s military (see 2402010018), the company announced Feb. 8. Hesai was added to the list “without any explanation or justification,” CEO Yifan Li said, calling the U.S. decision “unjust, capricious, and meritless.”
The U.K. High Court of Justice on Jan. 29 ruled that disclosures of reinsurance documents from a reinsurance broker to an airplane leasing company wouldn't violate the U.K.'s Russia sanctions regime. The disclosures were related to an insurance claim on planes leased by Russian airline operators.
The Netherlands' Rotterdam District Court on Jan. 15 sustained the Dutch National Bank's sanctions on an unnamed financial services provider, according to an unofficial translation. The court held that the bank "rightly" found that from July 2015 to March 2018, the financial services provider "systematically failed to comply with several core obligations" by "hardly conducting any customer due diligence" and failing to carry out any sanctions screening.
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.
The EU's new anti-coercion instrument entered into force Dec. 27, the European Commission announced. The tool allows the bloc to impose tariffs and place other trade restrictions in response to economic coercion (see 2310230012). The commission said it will take stakeholders' views into account when imposing retaliatory action, adding that any actions taken under the tool "are consistent with the EU's international obligations and fully grounded in international law."
The U.K.'s Solicitors Regulation Authority fined British law firm Ashfords LLP about $128,000 for violating the country's anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regulations. The U.K. said Ashfords, in helping a property investment company conduct a transaction, failed to discover or act on a potential link between the company and one of its sanctioned beneficial owners.
The EU General Court on Nov. 29 accepted the second application from Alexander Pumpyanskiy, son of Russian oligarch Dmitry Pumpyanskiy, to annul his sanctions relisting, according to an unofficial translation. The court rejected his claim for damages. Pumpyanskiy was sanctioned in March 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, because of his relationship to Dmitry Pumpyanskiy, and because he was president and board member of the Sinara Group.