General Court Stavytskyi judgment defining misappropriation of state funds in Ukraine sanctions

Edward Stavytskyi, former Minister for Energy and the Coal Industry of Ukraine, was listed on the EU’s March 2014 sanctions imposing an EU asset freeze on people said to be responsible for the misappropriation of Ukrainian state funds. Like everyone else on that list, Mr Stavytskyi was included for being a person under investigation in Ukraine for “involvement in crimes in connection with the embezzlement of Ukrainian state funds and their illegal transfer outside Ukraine”. Like a number of others, he successfully challenged his initial listing in Case T-486/14 (see previous blog here) because the sole basis for his inclusion at that time was a letter from March 2014 from Ukraine’s Prosecutor General which provided no details of what was alleged against him.

The EU General Court has rejected his challenge to his re-listing in Case T-242/16. The Court has said that the reasons given for his inclusion were sufficiently specific, the criteria for designating individuals in these measures has a proper legal basis when properly interpreted, and that the documents from the Ukrainian authorities now contained sufficient information about the allegations. The judgment has interesting passages defining the concept of misappropriation of state funds for these purposes.