The EU General Court on March 8 annulled the listing of Nizar Assaad under the Syria sanctions regime, finding the European Council erred in establishing that he is still a businessperson in Syria, has any ties to the ruling Assad or Makhlouf families or is associated with the Syrian regime. The court also said the council violated the principle of legal certainty by retroactively imposing the sanctions in 2011 after confirming that Assaad was not the listed party for the previous 10 years.
The EU General Court in a March 1 opinion granted "interim measures" allowing Russian national Nikita Mazepin, sanctioned in September, to enter the EU to "negotiate his recruitment" as a Formula 1 driver racing under a neutral flag. The opinion marks the first time the court suspended sanctions on a person pending the main hearing of the case, according to the European Sanctions blog.
Shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk is seeking around $43 million from Evergreen Marine over its Ever Given container ship's blockage of the Suez Canal in 2021, ShippingWatch reported. Filing suit at Denmark's Maritime and Commercial Court over losses caused by the Ever Given, Maersk said the blockage forced the company to divert vessels and suffer delays of shipping lines. Evergreen denied liability for the damages, ShippingWatch reported.
The EU General Court recently rejected a claim from former Ukrainian Minister of Revenues and Duties Oleksandr Klymenko looking for over $53,000 in reputational damages and over $2.1 million -- plus around $536 a month -- in damages stemming from his sanctions listing, according to an unofficial translation. Klymenko was listed under the EU's Ukraine misappropriation of state funds regime from 2015 to 2021.
The U.K. Commercial Court released a judgment in a case concerning vessels financed by the Russian transport ministry. The proceeding deals with a Cypriot charterer, Garvelor, which claimed specific performance of obligations it was owed under a bareboat charterparty by the vessel owners -- subsidiaries of sanctioned company GTLK. The subsidiaries provided for Gravelor to make payments for the vessels and for the title of the vessels to be transferred to them when the charterparty was terminated. However, sanctions made it illegal for Gravelor to pay the subsidiaries in U.S. dollars, which the charterparties required. The Commercial Court held that tendering payment in euros to a frozen account filled the contractual obligation to pay, granting an order to transfer the title of the vessels to Gravelor after considering the sanctions impact.
The U.K.'s Commercial Court in a Jan. 27 judgment let a proceeding involving PJSC National Bank Trust and PJSC Bank Otkritie Financial Corp. be taken to the Court of Appeal, finding it raises key questions of law concerning the impact of the U.K.'s Russia sanctions on ongoing litigation involving a designated party.
The Commercial Court of England and Wales is looking for information on insurance policy claims brought by aircraft lessors over the alleged loss of assets leased to Russian airlines since the invasion of Ukraine. While various cases have already been brought before the court, the judicial body seeks to understand the potential total number of actions that may be involved, what the issues might be in broad terms and whether any case management steps should be taken to answer these questions. Interested parties can contact the Commercial Court at comct.listing@justice.gov.uk by Dec. 16.
The EU General Court annulled the sanctions listing of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on the EU's terrorism restrictions list, but it dismissed the PKK's challenge to its 2015-2017 and 2019 sanction designations. The General Court in 2018 annulled the PKK's 2014-2017 designations, noting the justification of the initial designation in 2002 was too old to determine if the group's involvement in terrorist activities at the time of that initial designation continued from 2014 to 2017.The European Court of Justice overturned its judgment in 2021, referring the case back to the General Court.
Swiss commodity trading and mining company Glencore agreed to pay the Democratic Republic of the Congo $180 million to settle "all present and future claims" of corruption running from 2007 to 2018, the company announced. The news comes after Glencore pleaded guilty in a New York district court to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in May (see 2205270044). In that case, Glencore International and Glencore agreed to pay over $1.1 billion to settle the investigations into bribery and commodity price manipulation.
A handful of law firms are being investigated by the U.K. National Crime Agency and Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation for allegedly breaching U.K. sanctions, OFSI Director Giles Thomson told the Solicitors Regulation Authority Compliance Officers conference, news site Legal Futures reported. Thomson said at the early November conference that a "very small minority" of firms are trying to aid designated individuals in skirting sanctions, while a "larger minority" were either negligent about sanctions compliance or have failed to put in place compliance measures needed to root out sanctioned individuals and entities. The U.K. in October banned British law firms from providing "transactional legal advisory services" to Russian individuals and entities.