How hard should the EU have to prove its sanctions?

Uncategorized

January 19, 2026

On 15 January 2026, Advocate General Medina delivered her Opinion in NSD v Council (C-801/24 P), the appeal brought by Russia’s National Settlement Depository against its EU listing under Ukraine-related restrictive measures. The Opinion matters less for the fate of one entity than for what it signals about the EU courts’ default settings in sanctions litigation: what counts as support for a sanctioned government, what evidentiary threshold is acceptable, and how far proportionality review reaches when the main harm is felt by third parties (clients, counterparties, markets).

At first instance, the General Court in NSD v Council (T-494/22) upheld the listing under criterion (f), the notion that an entity may be listed for supporting, materially or financially, the Russian government. The Advocate General broadly endorses that approach. She treats criterion (f), embedded in Council Decision 2014/145/CFSP and mirrored in Council Regulation No. 269/2014, as intentionally drafted to capture not only direct transfers of money or goods but also forms of facilitation that, by their qualitative or quantitative importance, provide resources or facilities enabling state action. For financial-market infrastructure, the implication is straightforward: being a central node in settlement plumbing can itself be legally reframed as support, even if the entity claims it is merely providing technical services.

A second, arguably more consequential point concerns proof. The Opinion reiterates the Court’s sanctions line that listings may rest on a set of indicia rather than a courtroom-grade evidentiary chain. By relying on the cumulative evidence logic associated with Anbouba v Council (C-605/13 P), and by analogizing to the broad reading of support in Central Bank of Iran v Council (C-266/15 P), the Advocate General effectively normalizes a review model in which the Council wins if its file is coherent and plausible, so long as it is not internally contradictory or obviously thin. In practice, this rewards sanctions dossier-building: narrative consistency becomes a legal asset.

Third, on proportionality, the Opinion narrows who can complain. It suggests that NSD cannot readily invoke proportionality on behalf of its customers whose assets are indirectly affected; those customers are expected to pursue remedies via derogations and national procedures. That logic preserves the EU’s ability to exert systemic pressure while keeping judicial review focused on the listed entity’s own rights, at the price of fragmenting legal protection across multiple fora.

The Advocate General proposes dismissing the appeal on the key listing-criterion and proportionality grounds, while expressing no view on other grounds. The Court’s eventual judgment will show whether it follows this broad capture, light(er) proof, contained proportionality template, or tightens the screws.

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