EU Court of Justice rejects 5 appeals of sanctioned Russian businesspeople

27 March 2026

The European Court of Justice has rejected the joined appeals of 5 Russian businesspeople against judgments rejecting their applications to annul their listings under Article 3(1)(g) of Regulation 269/2014 – press release. The court agreed with Advocate Medina’s opinions. They are:

• Dmitry Pumpyanskiy, appeal against T-270/22.

• Tigran Khudaverdyan, appeal against T-335/22.

• Viktor Rashnikov, appeal against T-305/22.

• Dmitry Mazepin, appeal against T-282/22.

• German Khan, appeal against T-333/22.

All were sanctioned under Article 3(1)(g) which gives the EU power to sanction “leading businesspersons… involved in economic sectors providing a substantial source of revenue to the Government of the Russian Federation.” The ECJ dismissed all five appeals, saying:

• Criterion (g) requires the “economic sectors”, rather than the businesspeople, to provide a substantial source of revenue to the Russian Government [98-127].

• An economic sector can be a “substantial” source of revenue without considering the percentage of the government’s overall revenue provided by that sector [135-142].

• The word “leading” relates to the economic sector and not to any personal links to the Russian Government, which means people can be designated under criterion (g) without personal links to Government [165- 186].

• The sanctions imposed on the appellants did not infringe the principle of proportionality, and the broad interpretation given to the words “leading businessperson” does not mean that designation under criterion (g) was permanent or irreversible [256].

• Criterion (g) requires a link between the sanctioned person and Russia, but this link can be established by the leading businessperson operating in a sector that provides substantial revenue to Russia, so there is a still a link where the sanctioned businessperson has no personal connection to the Russian government [276, 291-292].