Attached is the opinion. It was issued in connection with the appeal of NSD against the judgement of the General Court in Case T-494/22. The Opinion clarifies (among others) the proposed approach to the interpretation of criterion set out in Article 3(1)(f) of Regulation 269/2014, whereby the EU asset-freeze sanctions may be applied to:
“natural or legal persons, entities or bodies supporting, materially or financially, or benefitting from the Government of the Russian Federation […]”.
The criterion is broad in its terms and the NSD argued that certain restrictions shall be applied to designate the scope of persons who/which may be considered as “supporting, materially or financially” Russian Governement.
The opinion, in essence, supports the judgement of the General Court, whereby the only qualifying factor to restrict the application of this criterion will be the “quantitive or qualitative” capability to facilitate the actions of the Russian Government. By itself the interpretation seems to imposes limited restrictions on the capability of the Council to designate, in essence, any person under this criterion, other than, arguably, the persons making de-minimis contributions (e.g., persons just paying regular taxes to a Russian budget, on assumption that none of them is a major tax payer).
The absence of (i) direct monies transfer to the Russian Government; (ii) any connection with Ukraine; and/or (iii) of state ownership in the relevant companies was dismissed as irrelevant factors for the application of this criterion.