Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

EU Sanctions Lifted for Ex-Ukraine President and Others

The European General Court annulled two years of sanctions Thursday against former Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych and one of his sons.

(CN) - The European General Court annulled two years of sanctions Thursday against former Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych and one of his sons.

Living in exile since 2014, Yanukovych brought the Ukraine to the brink of civil war by abandoning a deal two decades in the making that would have established closer ties with the EU.

Yanukovych instead pursued a deal that would have strengthened Ukraine’s ties to Russia, where the 69-year-old has been living in exile since fleeing Ukraine’s capital.

In March 2014 — two weeks after the Council of the European Union froze the assets of Yanukovych, his son and others — Russia annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea.

The EU council imposed the sanctions on the ground that Yanukovych and the others were subject to criminal embezzlement charges in Ukraine, and the sanctions have been renewed annually.

In ordering those sanctions annulled Thursday, however, Europe’s Luxembourg-based General Court determined that the council did not verify whether Ukraine complied with the rights of defense and effective judicial protection of the accused.

Specifically, the court annulled the asset freeze with regard to the former Ukrainian president and his son Oleksandr Yanukovych from March 2016 to March 2018.

The sanctions against five other former members of Ukraine’s ruling class were annulled as well for the period of March 2018 to March 2019.

English translations of the rulings are available only for Yanukovych’s son Oleksandr and Andriy Petrovych Klyuyev, who had been the former head of Yanukovych’s administration.

Follow @bleonardcns
Categories / Appeals, Financial, Government, International

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...