Further to our earlier post from February 2024, it is being reported that the Paris Court has ordered that the prosecution of the French cement maker Lafarge and eight individuals on charges of terrorist financing and breach of EU sanctions against ISIS should proceed to trial.
The case is part of a long running saga arising from allegations that the company paid money to ISIS in order to keep a cement plant open and operating.
In an earlier post we reported on the ongoing trial of the captain of the ship the “Baltic Leader”, who was being prosecuted in Rouen for alleged breaches of the EU’s Russian sanctions. French prosecutors were seeking a combined fine and confiscation of €16 million.
It is now being reported that yesterday the captain was acquitted of all charges.
Currently no further details are available.
The trial of the captain of a Russian cargo ship is now underway in Rouen.
It is being reported that the Rouen Prosecutor’s Office is seeking a fine of €8m, plus confiscation of the ship (valued at €8m) plus a suspended prison sentence of 10 months.
The case arises from the departure from the port of Rouen on 25 February 2022 of the vessel the “Baltic Leader” which was Russian flagged and carrying wind turbines.
Part of the prosecution’s case is that the vessel was ultimately owned and/or controlled by Promsvyazbank which is a designated person under the EU’s Russian sanctions.
It is being reported that the French port of Brest has barred the Russian vessel Shtandart from entering thereby enforcing the EU’s prohibition on Russian vessel entering EU ports.
The vessel has been re-flagged to the Cook Islands but remains operated by Russians. It is a modern replica of a frigate of Tsar Peter the Great which was sailing to Brest to take part in the Maritime Festival.
The same report notes that the vessel had previously been in another French port at La Rochelle.
France’s La Direction Nationale du Renseignement et des Enquêtes Douanières has issued a press release reporting on raids conducted on a company in Ile-de-France on Thursday and Friday of last week.
The raids by 25 customs officers came after a 10-month investigation. The conduct is stated to amount to exports valued at several 10s of millions of Euros, and to have involved 100s of false customs declarations involving several dozen different exporters each using the services of the raided customs agent.
The company had advertised on the darkweb that it could provide a turnkey sanctions evasion service.
The French authorities acknowledged the help from reports from other European countries and noted the investigation highlighted “statistical anomalies, notably an exponential growth of exports of the company in question to third countries bordering Russia”.
With the recent news that Finland has increased the number of its ongoing investigations, Europe (meaning the EU, the UK, Switzerland, etc) has reached the milestone of over 2,000 ongoing and public sanctions enforcement investigations being undertaken by regulators and prosecutors.
No doubt there are other investigations which are ongoing in the countries shown on the graph, and no doubt there are investigations ongoing in countries not shown and which remain confidential.
How many of these will be dropped due to inconclusive evidence or exculpatory evidence, and how many will lead to a conviction or fine or acquittal is impossible to say.
It is, without question, an unprecedented level of enforcement.
Le Monde has reported that the French authorities have seized a property in Paris belonging to designated person Dmitry Peskov, President Putin’s spokesperson.
The seizure took place in December 2023. A villa in south-west France was seized at the same time with it said to belong to Artur Ocheretny, who is married to President’s Putin’s former wife. Mr Ocheretny is not designated under the EU’s sanctions.
It is being reported that the seizures are part of investigations relating to allegations of money laundering.
This blog has been live now for just over two months.
During that time and by way of recap, a number of states have provided updated enforcement statistics in that period (Finland, Switzerland, Latvia), but the period has also seen a significant volume of new enforcement activity:
Continue reading “European sanctions enforcement: the last two months”
It is being reported today that BNP Paribas remains the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Paris Prosecutor’s office in relation to allegations of complicity in crimes against humanity, torture and genocide arising from the financial services it provided to the government of Sudan between 2002 and 2008.
BNP’s Swiss subsidiary is also the subject of the investigation.
BNP Paribas has previously pled guilty to US sanctions charges, and the Swiss regulator FINMA has previously punished BNP Paribas Suisse.
While the relevant limitation period for sanctions offences in France has expired, the case is a reminder that same sanctions breaches can potentially give rise to liability for other offences.
The Parquet de Paris (Paris Prosecutor’s Office) has seized a villa valued at €120 million in the south of France, and the shares of the company that is the registered owner of the villa.
The Paris Prosecutors allege that the villa is really owned or controlled by GazpromNeft, the Russian state-owned gas company which is designated in the EU and so subject to an asset freeze.
The seizure forms part of a ongoing investigation.
