The Court of the European Union has refused to lift sanctions against businessman Timchenko.
The European Court of Justice refused to lift the sanctions imposed on Gennady Timchenko and his wife. They filed appeals in 2023 regarding their inclusion in the EU sanction list.
Gennady Timchenko holds Russian and Finnish citizenship. He is the owner of the private investment group, Volga Group.
The EU imposed sanctions on Gennady Timchenko stating he “is an old acquaintance of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and is usually presented as one of his confidants.”… He is the founder and shareholder of Volga Group, an investment group with a portfolio of investments in key sectors of the Russian economy.. He is also a shareholder of Bank Rossiya, which is considered to be the bank of Vladimir Putin and people associated with him.. In addition, Bank Rossiya owns shares in the National Media Group, a media holding company that controls 28 media companies in Russia that actively spread propaganda and disinformation.”
In court, lawyers representing the interests of the businessman put forward several arguments in his defense. The court documents contain, for example, the following: “businessmen close to the President of the Russian Federation no longer exert any influence on him since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.”
There is another argument that may be interesting. The lawyers of the businessman stated that “he cannot be considered to have personally supported actions or policies that undermined or threatened the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine… when such support was provided not by him, but through Bank Rossiya. In this case, on the one hand he does not exercise leadership functions, but on the other, he is a minority shareholder in this bank.”
However, the court ruled that Gennady Timchenko did not prove that his personal circumstances had changed, in particular that he remained a significant minority shareholder of Bank Rossiya and also that the bank had stopped providing financial support to the president of the Russian federation.
The court’s decision is available in French.
