Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich has lost a third sanctions case at the EU courts, in what may embolden Europe to go after other high-value Russian taxpayers in October.
The General Court rejected his challenge on a technical issue and on grounds the EU Council was right to target “sectors which generate significant revenues for the Russian government”.
On the procedural side, Abramovich’s small army of EU lawyers had contended that only the “EU Council” (a meeting of 27 ministers) had the legal right to impose sanctions, but claimed that blacklist decisions had de facto been made by the council’s lower-level “working groups”.
They also claimed he was unfairly targeted because the EU wanted “to exploit him on account of his public notoriety”.
Abramovich used to own Chelsea Football Club in the UK and over €300m of luxury real estate in France and Portugal before he was listed in 2022.
