Two Russian bankers left in EU limbo, despite court victory

The EU Council had managed to prove "a degree of proximity between Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman and [Russian president] Vladimir Putin or his entourage", it said.

But this did "not demonstrate that they have supported actions or policies that undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine", the court added.

The pair’s French law-firm, Kiejman & Marembert, told EUobserver: "Today’s decisions are of the utmost significance. The court rightly found that all accusations against Mr Mikhail Fridman and Mr Petr Aven were completely baseless".

"Sanctioning them was a counterproductive mistake. They have nothing to do on the EU’s list nor any other list," it said.

Aven and Fridman remain frozen out of EU travel and banking for the time being, however.

The EU Council first has two months and 10 days to decide if to appeal.

Meanwhile, Aven and Fridman were also blacklisted by the EU in a second decision in 2023, which remained subject to separate lawsuits that have not been ruled on yet.

"There is as yet no date set for the judgment in these cases," a European Court of Justice (ECJ) spokesman said.

The EU Council also has the option of re-blacklisting Aven and Fridman on slightly different grounds in September, when the EU’s Russia sanctions come up for their next six-monthly review.

And so, for now, the Russian bankers joined Russian racing driver Nikita Mazepin, who also won an annulment in March, in the EU’s legal limbo.

Theirs were just a handful of some 115 EU court cases linked to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

And others were also starting to mature after 18 months or more of litigation and lobbying, involving similar claims of nebulous EU Council evidence.

A notable number of other Russia cases and appeals was expected to be decided before the ECJ’s summer recess in July, an EU contact said.

EU sanctions against Aven and Fridman had detailed their relations with Putin.

Aven’s "friendship" with Putin went back to St Petersburg in the 1990s, they met "regularly", and Aven’s bank worked on a charity project with Putin’s daughter Maria, the EU Council said.

Fridman was "a top Russian financier and enabler of Putin’s inner circle", whose Alfa Bank group insured Russian military vehicles in Ukraine and produced T-shirts with the pro-war Z logo, the EU also said.

But the EU court still backed the Russians’ position that it was "neither reliable nor credible" to say they’d contributed to Russia’s war effort.

When asked how Wednesday’s verdict boded for other anti-EU lawsuits, Kiejman & Marembert said: "We believe Messrs Fridman and Aven’s situation is unique, so it is hard to tell what implications these decisions might have, if any, in other cases".

Its statement also said, however: "We hope that today’s strong signal will be heard in the EU and outside".

William Julié, from French law-firm Wj Avocats, which has represented other Russians in successful anti-EU sanctions decisions, also cautioned that each case had its "own particularities".

But commenting on recent EU court verdicts, Julié said: "There seems to be a trend and at least one common theme: the Council cannot rely on evidence or actions that took place in the past to sanction an individual — especially because listing criteria are worded in the present tense".

EU limbo

The EU has blacklisted 2,177 individuals and entities over Putin’s invasion and just eight individuals have managed to get delisted in the past two years.

Their delistings came following a mixture of EU court victories and out-of-court EU Council decisions.

Three of those delisted also had EU citizenship and Aven was "of Russian and Latvian nationality", the EU court noted in passing on Wednesday, in what might improve his chances.

Aven was born in Moscow in 1955, but his grandfather was Latvian, and he was naturalised in 2016 after passing a language exam.

EU sanctions forbid pro-Russian lobbying of EU institutions or member states’ governments by European law firms or PR consultancies.

But Croatia, Hungary, and Slovakia have pushed to get their Russian friends or own nationals successfully delisted in the past, while Russian oligarchs’ lobbyists and spin doctors were free to visit EU capitals.

And the fact that Aven and Fridman, like Mazepin, remained on the EU blacklist for now despite their "annulments" showed that litigation alone might not be enough to get off the hook.