On June 25, the European Court of Justice decided to annul the Council of the EU decisions to prolong sanctions against Pavel Ezubov, Oleg Deripaska’s cousin.
The sanctions were imposed in 2022 because Ezubov was Oleg Deripaska’s cousin, who owns the Russian Machines industrial conglomerate, part of a military-industrial company. The justification for the sanctions stated that Deripaska transferred part of the assets to his brother.
In September 2024, the court partially satisfied Ezubov’s demands for the lifting of sanctions. Then the decisions of the Council dated 2023 were canceled.
The court examined in detail the asset ownership schemes that Deripaska transferred to Ezubov. But, as it turned out, the transfer was often carried out before the sanctions were imposed.
“The applicant and Mr Deripaska have a longstanding business relationship and the transactions between them are part of that business relationship rather than being confined strictly to a family framework. The mere existence of shared or common interests between two business partners is not sufficient in itself to demonstrate that one of the two business partners benefits from the other,” said the court in its materials.
The materials also state that the EU used information from several websites, including newspapers Vedomosti, Kommersant, media Rusprofile, and Compromat.Pro, in support of its claims.
Oleg Deripaska is the founder of the Basic Element Industrial Group. Forbes magazine estimated his fortune at $2.8 billion in 2024. Oleg Deripska is on the sanctions lists of the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
