Further to our earlier post from July 2023 regarding the arrest of a 73-year old individual, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service has announced that it has reached a settlement both with the individual and a related company. The press release is only available in Dutch and was not included amongst those published in English.
The company has been fined €195,000 and the individual, the company’s director, has been fined €20,000. The company and the individual have not been named.
The fines have been imposed because at the end of 2021 the company paid out dividends of approximately €18m to one of its shareholders who was a designated person under the EU’s Russian sanctions. The company also did not freeze the designated person’s shares, and continued to allow the shares to vote.
In addition, in 2019, a loan of €100,000 was repaid to a different Russian designated person in breach of the EU’s asset freeze.