An unnamed financial services provider had appealed three fines imposed on it by the Dutch National Bank in relation to inadequate AML and sanctions screening in relation to transactions to do with Somalia, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
The fines were €8,000, €5,000 and €10,000 for the three identified breaches.
The fine of €8,000 was reduced on appeal to €7,600 on the basis of delay by the regulator, but the others were upheld.
It has been reported today that the Romanian company Deltrans Grup&Ro SR successfully appealed against a fine and confiscation order imposed by the Romanian ANAF.
The alleged wrongdoing related to two orders from a Moldovan company filled by products from plywood producer Sveza. The ANAF alleged that Sveza was owned and controlled by a designated person, Alexei Mordashov.
The court ruled that this link was asserted rather than proven by the ANAF and annulled the fine and confiscation.
It has been reported that the ANAF is appealing this decision.
The Swiss authorities have this week provided some statistics on their ongoing sanctions enforcement efforts.
They have reported a total of 100 investigations. Of those:
While most of these relate to Russia, at least two relate to Belarus sanctions.
The majority of the investigations are said to relate to trade sanctions rather than financial sanctions.
The Dutch authorities today announced that they have 45 ongoing criminal investigations into Russian sanctions breaches.
Of these 29 involve violations of import and export sanctions and 16 relate to breaches of financial sanctions.
Further to our earlier post, the US authorities have now withdrawn the extradition request for Graham Bonham-Carter.
He had been arrested as part of an extradition request in October 2022, but that request has now been withdrawn.
It has been reported today that the French authorities currently have 17 ongoing sanctions investigations targeting designated persons under the EU’s Russian sanctions.
The same report noted the ongoing French efforts to freeze and seize property assets of designated persons.
The Lithuanian authorities are investigating allegations of the import of urea from the Belarus company Grodno Azot (designated under Belarus sanctions).
Searches have been conducted at a number of locations and 3000 tonnes of urea has been seized valued at several million euros.
The imports are alleged to have been conducted by two companies and involved the relabelling of the product as if it had been produced by another supplier and not Grodno Azot.
The Belgian Minister of Finance has issued a statement regarding Belgian efforts to enforce the EU’s sanctions against Russia.
Included, is confirmation that 19 reports have been referred to the public prosecutor’s office, and that a further 15 such other such reports are being prepared.
No further information on the nature of the alleged offending was included.
It is being reported that the Danish Business Authority has referred two cases to the police for potential further action.
This is further to our earlier post relating to the commencement of the investigations.
Both cases relate to the continuation of operations by designated Russian organisations in Denmark.
These two police investigations add the the 12 already known to have been commenced (see our earlier post).
The Spanish Guardia Civil has today arrested a British national in response to an extradition request by the US authorities.
The man, Richard Masters, is alleged to have assisted in the contravention of sanctions as part of the management and operation of the yacht the M/Y Tango on behalf of sanctioned Russian Viktor Vekselberg.
The yacht has also been seized.
