![Ruling [EGC] ¦ General Court Annuls Belarus Sanctions Renewal for a Businessperson Because Evidence Was Outdated](/assets/images/posts/pexels-imvitordiniz-32078969_1024.webp)
22 October 2025
Ruling [EGC] ¦ General Court Annuls Belarus Sanctions Renewal for a Businessperson Because Evidence Was Outdated
Belarus sanctions renewal falls for lack of an updated assessment
The General Court of the European Union has annulled the Council’s February 2024 renewal of the sanctions listing of a Russian businessperson under the EU regime for Belarus. The Council had kept him on the lists as a person who benefits from or supports the regime of President Lukashenko, but its evidence described a situation that had largely ended by the time of the renewal.
The ruling turns on the duty to review restrictive measures periodically. Such measures are precautionary and provisional, so the Council has to assess the current situation at each renewal and cannot rely on past prominence or on presumptions.
The listing and the 2024 renewal
The applicant was first listed in June 2021 and was renewed in 2022 and 2023. Under the Belarus regime, funds are frozen and entry to the EU is barred for persons who benefit from or support the regime, and the Council justified his listing with four groups of reasons. It pointed to his business interests in Belarus in energy, potash and commercial property. It cited a long-standing personal relationship with the President, said to have brought him wealth and influence. It referred to Russian journalists flown to Belarus on an aircraft belonging to him in 2020, and to his contribution to the purchase of medical scanners during the pandemic.
In December 2023 the Council told the applicant it intended to maintain the listing and sent him an evidence file. He replied, asked for removal and, at the Council’s request, submitted a schedule of assets he had divested in Belarus. On 26 February 2024 the Council extended the measures until 28 February 2025 without changing the grounds. An earlier judgment of 2023 had found the grounds sufficient for the initial listing and the 2022 renewal. The question here was whether the same grounds still held in 2024.
A full review and the duty to update
The applicant relied on four pleas, withdrew part of the first and the whole fourth at the hearing, and the Court decided the case on the plea of an error of assessment. It treated that plea as one alleging an error of assessment and not only a manifest one. The Council has some discretion, but the EU courts review the lawfulness of the acts fully and check that the listing rests on a sufficiently solid factual basis.
The Council bears the burden of proof through specific, precise and consistent evidence, and the person listed does not have to prove the negative. On renewals, the Council may reuse earlier evidence only if the grounds are unchanged and the context has not made that evidence out of date. It must carry out an updated assessment during the periodic review. The Court found that the evidence files sent to the applicant contained no updated evidence on the matters he raised.
A nationalised project and a claim of circumvention
The largest business interest in the reasons was a large potash mining and processing project. The applicant showed that the Belarusian State had nationalised the project under a presidential decree of 2022, that the company he chaired was no longer in charge of it, that the investment agreement had been terminated and that he had held no shares in the parent company since June 2022. The Council did not seriously dispute the documents and did not check who owned the new state-owned company or whether he had any involvement.
The Council argued that the nationalisation and the change in shareholding were a way of circumventing the sanctions, and pointed to a practice among some Russian businesspeople of using Cypriot companies. It also noted that the applicant’s own removal request mentioned a 3.66 percent shareholding in the operating company on the date of the claimed disposal. The Court held that an assertion of circumvention was not enough. Without evidence of a current link between the project and the applicant, the Council could not rely on his past role, because that would presume that a businessperson stays linked to the regime after leaving Belarus and would reverse the burden of proof. Two press articles from 2020 and 2021 on the Belarusian economy in general did not show that the regime uses nationalisations to let businesspeople keep their ties.
Old energy activities and property interests
The energy grounds rested on the oil companies of the applicant’s group, which had continued to supply Belarusian refineries during the energy crisis with Russia in early 2020. That was four years before the renewal. The applicant admitted being a minority shareholder in the companies and claimed that they no longer operated in Belarus. The Court held that past events could support the earlier acts but not a renewal based on a periodic review, and that presuming a continuing interest would freeze his situation and strip the periodic review of effect. The Council had produced no updated evidence on the extent of the companies’ activity on the Belarusian oil market. The fuelling stations and oil depots came from a role held from 2000 to 2002, which did not show shareholding and was far too old.
For the hotel in Minsk, a business centre and an airport terminal, the Court held that even if he still owned them, the file showed nothing on the current extent of his property business or any new investments. These interests were secondary to the potash project, which was no longer relevant. Treating them as sufficient would introduce a presumption that any businessperson in Belarus supports the regime, which neither the decision nor the regulation contained when the contested acts were adopted.
Contested meetings with the President
The Council said the applicant had flown to Belarus in May and November 2023 to meet the President. It relied on press articles, a messaging channel post and flight tracker screenshots. The applicant produced a certificate from the airline stating that he was not aboard the aircraft on those dates. The Council called it unreliable because it was produced at his request and because he had not shown that he was in Moscow.
The Court disagreed on each point. The Council had not shown any link between the airline and the applicant. It could not require him to prove where he was without reversing the burden of proof. Its own evidence was also contradictory about the aircraft and the airports involved. The Court recognised a long-standing relationship with the President but found nothing to show that it was still active in 2024, and the Council had not shown any new economic or social projects or continued work on the potash project.
Journalists and scanners
The claim about Russian media workers rested on a single article from 2021. It named only one person, a deputy branch director of a Russian state broadcaster, who arrived in Minsk on the applicant’s private jet in August 2020, whereas the reasons spoke of several media workers. The Council’s argument that it was reasonable to expect that he could have used his influence to accommodate journalists at the hotel was speculation. The scanner donation dated from November 2020, more than three years before the renewal, and the Court called that ground obsolete once the business interests and the relationship had fallen away.
Annulment and the Council’s request on temporal effects
Because the Council failed to carry out an updated assessment, the Court held that it had made an error of assessment and annulled the decision and the implementing regulation in so far as they concern the applicant. It did not examine the other pleas. The Council had asked the Court to maintain the effects of the decision until the annulment of the regulation took effect. As a later decision had extended the listing until February 2026 and was not covered by the action, the request was moot. The Council must pay the costs.
Consequences for sanctions screening and monitoring
For screening teams, the ruling is a reminder that a listing under a support-based criterion is tested against current facts at each renewal. Prominence in a sector and old ties to a political leader do not by themselves justify a renewal, and a presumption that businesspeople in a country support its regime is not available unless the legal act contains one. The Court also treated a claimed circumvention scheme as something the Council must prove.
The judgment does not change what firms must do in practice. It annulled one renewal. A later decision kept the applicant on the lists, and the current status has to be checked on the EU Consolidated Financial Sanctions List and the Official Journal. A claimed nationalisation, divestment or change of role also stays a point for verification through documents such as registers, decrees and transfer deeds. The Court’s approach describes what the Council must prove in a court, and it does not lower the level of diligence a firm applies to a customer’s ownership and links.
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