On September 3, the European Court of Justice ruled to refuse to lift sanctions against the Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov. The businessman had demanded the cancellation of the prolongation of sanctions imposed by the EU for 2023 and 2024.
Alisher Usmanov, who holds both Russian and Uzbek citizenship, was placed under sanctions by the EU in 2018. The reason for the sanctions was that he was a pro-Kremlin oligarch with interests in the iron and steel industries, as well as media and internet companies.
In addition, it was pointed out that when the businessman “took control of business daily Kommersant, the freedom of the editorial staff was curtailed and the newspaper took a manifestly pro-Kremlin stance. The Kommersant under [the applicant’s] ownership published a propagandist anti-Ukrainian article by Dmitry Medvedev, in which the former President of Russia argued that it was meaningless to engage in talks with the current Ukrainian authorities, who in his opinion were under direct foreign control.”
Among the arguments of the businessman heard in court were data from the Landgericht Hamburg (Regional Court, Hamburg, Germany) that made a number of orders against the newspaper Kurier, prohibiting it from publishing the statement that he ‘[had] a reputation [as] Mr. Putin’s “favourite oligarch”, as Mr. Putin himself used to call him’, and against the newspapers Exxpress and Der Tagespiegel, prohibiting them from publishing statements concerning the applicant’s alleged ownership of properties in Germany.
However, the court noted that these articles were not included in the dossier, which formed the basis for the sanctions.
