For the first time, the EU Court allowed the lifting of sanctions against a Russian businessman

The European Court of General Jurisdiction for the first time canceled sanctions against a Russian businessman, which were introduced due to Russiaʼs invasion of Ukraine.

The court passed the decision on September 6, and details are reported by the Financial Times and Politico.

It is Aleksandr Shulgin, the former head of the Ozon marketplace. He was sanctioned for attending a meeting of Russian oligarchs called by Putin on February 25, 2022. The EU could not sufficiently prove that Shulgin supported policies that threatened stability in Ukraine or that he remained a leading businessman after he resigned as CEO of e-commerce company Ozon last April. This court decision can be appealed.

As explained to Radio Svoboda in the press service of the court, Shulgin did not challenge the sanctions as such in his lawsuit but only demanded that he be excluded from future lists. The EU Council previously agreed not to include Shulgin in the updated lists to be published in September, given the weak arguments against the former businessman.

Along with Shulgin, steel tycoon Dmitry Pumpyanskyi, his wife Galina and their son Aleksandr; former CEO of the Yandex search engine Tigran Khudaverdyan and oil magnate Mykhailo Gutseriev, who was sanctioned in 2021 due to his ties to Belarus claimed the sanctions. The EU court refused them.