EU court rejects Mehdi Ben Ali’s application

The General Court of the EU has dismissed Mehdi Ben Ali’s application challenging his re-listing on the EU’s Tunisia sanctions freezing the EU assets of people said to be responsible for misappropriating Tunisian state funds, which have been in place since 2011. The judgment is here – Case T-200/14 Ben Ali v Council [2016] (so far published only in French), and the Tunisia measures are on the ‘sanctions in force’ section of this blog. In 2014 he won his original challenge to his designation on the grounds that (see previous blog) accusations of money laundering were not necessarily misappropriations of state funds. The reasons for his re-listing were that he was subject to judicial investigations by the Tunisian authorities for misappropriation of public monies, misuse of office by a public office-holder, and exerting wrongful influence over a public office-holder (former President Ben Ali). The Court rejected his grounds for annulment (legal base, reasons, rights of defence, errors of fact etc) and his claim for damages and costs. It did so largely applying the Ezz judgment (see previous blog).