The European Union does not intend to extend the sanctions previously imposed against Russian billionaire Farhad Akhmedov and the owner of the RBC media holding Grigory Berezkin, writes Reuters.
According to the agency’s sources, in addition to Akhmedov and Berezkin, the former CEO of Ozon, Alexander Shulgin, will be excluded from the sanctions list, the restrictions against whom were canceled on September 6 by the European Court of General Jurisdiction in Luxembourg.
Reuters interlocutors did not specify what was the reason for the possible exclusion of Akhmedov and Berezkin from the EU sanctions register. The agency notes that the sanctions against the three Russians expire on September 15; the restrictions require renewal every six months.
Shulgin, Akhmedov and Berezkin were included in the EU sanctions list in the spring of 2022 as businessmen close to Vladimir Putin who benefit from the Russian regime. Previously, all three filed lawsuits with the EU Court demanding that the previously imposed restrictions be lifted from them.
In total, according to the EU Court, Russian businessmen filed about 60 lawsuits to lift sanctions. Prior to this, the EU court lifted sanctions only from relatives of entrepreneurs who were subject to restrictions – Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mother Violetta and Dmitry Mazepin’s son Nikita. The decision against Mazepin was partial and related exclusively to his professional activities as a racing driver.
Previously, the European Union court rejected claims against the former general director and main owner of the Pipe Metallurgical Company Dmitry Pumpyansky and his wife, co-owner of NOVATEK and SIBUR Gennady Timchenko and his wife, as well as the former managing director of Yandex Tigran Khudaverdyan and the owner of the Safmar group Mikhail Gutserieva.
In July of this year, the UK removed businessman Oleg Tinkov from the sanctions list. He is no longer subject to sanctions involving the seizure of assets and a ban on the provision of trust services. Last May, Tinkov published a post where he said that he had “nothing left in Russia” and that he was “taking the Tinkoff and La Datcha brands out of the country: he did not want to “stain them with the blood of Russian soldiers and residents of Ukraine.”
