Billionaire oligarch secures removal from EU sanctions

ONE of Britain’s richest oligarchs, Mikhail Fridman, has won an appeal at a European Union court to remove him from the bloc’s sanctions.

The EU’S General Court found that there was not sufficient evidence that the billionaire and his business partner Petr Aven had backed the invasion of Ukraine. The ruling is a blow to the EU’S sanctions crackdown on Moscow, which has targeted over 1,700 people and 400 entities for supporting the war.

Judges ruled that while there is a “degree of proximity between Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman and Vladimir Putin or his entourage”, the EU had failed to “demonstrate that [the men had] supported actions or policies” in the invasion of Ukraine.

“The General Court considers that none of the reasons set out in the initial acts is sufficiently substantiated and that the inclusion of Mr Aven and Mr Fridman on the lists at issue was therefore not justified,” the court said in a statement.

Mr Fridman, 59, who amassed his estimated £11 billion fortune in oil, telecoms, banking and retail, arrived in London nearly a decade ago after selling his stake in oil giant TNK-BP to Russian state-controlled Rosneft in a $55 billion deal.

The Ukrainian-born, Russian-israeli tycoon, is one of the co-founders of Russian conglomerate Alfa-group and bought the historic Athlone House in Highgate, north London, for £65 million in 2016.

He was sanctioned by Britain in March 2022, following the invasion of Ukraine, resulting in his bank accounts being blocked.

Mr Fridman has previously denied being an oligarch, claiming to have no association with Putin and denied being “pro-kremlin”. He fled Britain for Russia, via Israel, in October last year. His lawyers previously said that he does not intend to return to the UK.

The latest ruling by the General Court only applies to Mr Fridman and Mr Aven’s inclusion on the bloc’s sanction list between February 2022 and March 2023. An EU decision in January, however, renewed the sanctions regime until July 31 2024.

Both have lodged separate appeals against that action.

The EU’S sanction regime has frozen the finances to people deemed to have “supported actions and policies that undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine”.