The General Court of the EU decided on Wednesday to remove Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven from the list of people under EU sanctions from the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“The General Court considers that none of the stated reasons is sufficiently supported by evidence and that it is therefore not justified for Mr. Aven and Mr. Friedman to be on the mentioned lists,” the Luxembourg-based court announced.
Aven and Friedman’s money and assets were frozen after the European Council imposed sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Both are major shareholders of the Alfa Group conglomerate, which includes Russia’s major private bank Alfa Bank and the largest food retail chain X5.
The court ruled that the billionaires should not have been on that list from February 2022 to March 2023.
In a decision in March 2023, the EU reintroduced sanctions on those two billionaires who complained about the sanctions.
The court explained that the Council may have had grounds to conclude that they are closely connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but this does not prove that they supported actions or policies against Ukraine or that they financially supported Russian decision-makers.
