Some lawyers foresee a new boom in Russian litigation at the EU courts in Luxembourg, as Europe prepares to backlist hundreds or even thousands of new names.
Russian appetite for anti-sanctions lawsuits has not faded, despite very few of the top oligarchs or politicians having managed to get off the list in the past four and a half years, attorneys said.
“As far as I am concerned, we are not seeing individuals subject to restrictive measures abandoning their appeals before the European courts. They systematically challenge renewals [of blacklists naming them]”, said Thierry Bontinck, a leading EU sanctions barrister in Brussels.
Bontinck’s clients have included ex-Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, Kremlin-family industrialist Oleg Deripaska, and Gennady Timchenko, a billionaire and personal friend of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“Both foreign companies – Indian, Chinese – and Russian individuals or entities continue to challenge the restrictive measures,” Bontinck told EUobserver on Thursday (3 September).
