On 18 December, the European Union approved its twelfth package of sanctions against Russia, targeting various sectors.
Among the new measures adopted by the European body, it is worth highlighting those regulated in the first Article of Council Regulation 2023/2873 amending Article three of Regulation 269/2014 concerning restrictive measures in respect of actions which undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.
On the one hand, in paragraph (a) of the aforementioned article, the precision is added that the following shall be considered sanctioned persons: firstly, entities established in Russia that previously belonged to or were under the control of entities established in the European Union, whose ownership or control has been compulsorily transferred by the Government of the Russian Federation by any measure of the Russian public authorities, secondly, natural or legal persons, entities or bodies which have benefited from such transfer, and thirdly, natural persons who have been appointed to the governing bodies of such entities in Russia without the consent of the Union entities to which they were previously owned or controlled.
In subparagraph b), on the other hand, a precision of dubious legality is inserted, which deals with the consideration of a sanctioned person who dies with frozen assets. In short, the Council’s decision is based on the idea that any natural person included on the list in Annex I who dies during the period of application of the restrictive measures, the Council may maintain the name of the deceased person on the list if his removal from the list would risk undermining the objectives of the Union’s restrictive measures, because of the likelihood that the assets concerned would otherwise be used to finance Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine or other actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.
With the collaboration of José Luis Iriarte, Professor of International Private Law at the Universidad Pública de Navarra.
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