EU Court rejects Al-Ghabra’s annulment application

Mr Al-Ghabra was designated by the UN on its counter-terrorist asset freezing measures in 2006 at the UK’s request. He applied to the General Court of the EU to annul his listing and subsequent re-listings in 2013. The Court has just rejected that application in Case T-248/13 Al-Ghabra v Commission (13 December 2016). The Court found that his application was out of time in so far as it related to his original designation, that the Commission could not be criticised for failure to follow the procedure and legal standards set out in Kadi II (see previous blog) for reviewing UN designations, and that although that review had taken an unreasonable length of time, it had not prejudiced the applicant’s rights of defence. The Court also rejected the applicant’s suggestions that the Commission had not satisfied that the UN had relied on evidence obtained by torture or had failed to gather exculpatory material, and that there was insufficient evidence to justify the EU implementation of Mr Al-Ghabra’s designation.