UK Court of Appeal rejects Dana Astra’s Belarus delisting appeal – judgment on ECHR jurisdiction & limits of Government’s discretion in sanctions cases

27 February 2026

The UK Court of Appeal has dismissed Dana Astra’s appeal in Dana Astra v Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs [2026] EWCA Civ 160 – press summary.  The appeal was against the High Court’s decision rejecting Dana Astra’s delisting application. Maya Lester KC of globalsanctions.com acted for Dana Astra.

Dana Astra is a property developer. It was sanctioned on the UK’s Belarus sanctions list in 2020, and re‑listed in 2023, for being complicit in the repression of civil society by sponsoring the Belarusian National Olympic Committee, and for obtaining a benefit from or supporting the Belarusian Government through its role in the Minsk World construction project.  It challenged its designation under s.38 of the UK Sanctions Act. It said it had sought to end the sponsorship as soon as the International Olympic Committee criticised the Belarusian Olympic Committee after Belarus’ 2020 elections, and it far from benefitting from or supporting the regime, it had been subject to the wrath of the regime in the form of Belarus’ own sanctions which amounted to a corporate raid.

The Court of Appeal upheld the High Court judgment and held that:

1. Dana wasn’t within the jurisdiction of the UK for the purposes of the European Convention on Human Rights because it had no property in the UK and the good will in its business was insufficient.

2. Sanctioning Dana was in any event not disproportionate (this was “hopeless” in light of the Shvidler judgment, where the effects were more intrusive §107).

3. Once there are reasonable grounds to suspect that someone is an “involved person” (the threshold for being considered for designation under the UK Sanctions Act), the Government has “theoretical scope for the exercise of a discretion” as to whether or not to designate someone, but that scope is “narrow”, ie if the Secretary of State decides this is a “de minimis” case (§93).

4. It was “irrelevant” to the decision to designate Dana (§97) that it had sought to terminate its sponsorship as soon as the Belarus Olympic Committee was criticised in the election aftermath, and irrelevant that instead of benefitting from the Belarus regime it had been subject to oppressive treatment by it (§98).