A top EU court on Wednesday rejected Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich’s third attempt to overturn sanctions against him over the war in Ukraine.
The former owner of Chelsea soccer club, who has close ties to the Kremlin, was added to the bloc’s asset freeze and visa ban blacklist in 2022 after Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor.
The EU’s General Court rejected Abramovich’s claims that the bloc was unfairly seeking to “exploit him on account of his public notoriety.”
It said that Abramovich, who has been an Israeli citizen since 2018 and a Portuguese citizen since 2021, was listed legally because he had stakes in metals giants Evraz and Norilsk Nickel, both of which provided “a substantial source of revenue” for the Russian government.
The ruling, which was published online, defended the sanctions as both “sufficiently precise and proportionate.”
