CJEU rejects Ammar Sharif’s sanctions delisting appeal

25 June 2026

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has dismissed Ammar Sharif's appeal against the General Court's judgment in Case T‑503/23, which rejected his challenge to his 2023 relisting under the EU Syria sanctions regime – Sharif v Council Case C-760/24 P.

Article 15(1a)(b) of Regulation (EU) 36/2012 permits the EU to list “members of the al-Assad or Makhlouf families”. Mr Sharif is the brother-in-law of Rami Makhlouf, who is himself EU-sanctioned. Mr Sharif was first listed in 2016 as a leading businessman in Syria and relisted in 2020 on the additional basis of his family link to Mr Makhlouf. He was relisted on the same basis in 2023. The General Court dismissed his challenge to that relisting. The CJEU dismissed his appeal, finding:

• The family-link criterion is a general rule to which limited judicial review applies. The presumption of connection to the Syrian regime it creates is rebuttable: listed persons can produce evidence seriously challenging the Council’s case, or showing absence of a real risk of circumvention, without needing to prove dissolution of the family tie itself.

• The General Court was not required to review the legality of the acts listing Rami Makhlouf; and Mr Sharif's evidence that Makhlouf's ties to the Syrian regime had weakened did not establish that Mr Sharif himself was no longer linked to him.

• The General Court did not require Mr Sharif to prove absence of all family links with Mr Makhlouf: it required a body of evidence showing absence of a real risk of circumvention, to which evidence of no remaining link with Mr Makhlouf was relevant.

See our EU-Syria judgments pages for all Syria delisting challenges, including previous judgments relating to Mr Sharif.