It is being reported that the Irish authorities have barred the vessel, the Sarah M, from loading a cargo of livestock after the authorities became aware that the vessel was registered with the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping.
Under article 3ea of Regulation 833/2014, any vessel certified via the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping was, after 8 April 2023, barred from entry to EU ports.
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.
The Irish Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment has launched an investigation into alleged breaches of both UN and EU sanctions against Libya first reported in the Irish Times.
It is alleged that former members of the Irish Defence Forces provided military training and material to forces of Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army in breach of relevant arms embargoes.
It is alleged that the initial contract was entered into by an Irish company co-owned by Danny Cluskey, Darren Kelly and Nigel McCormack, and that the contract was then switched to a Dubai-based company (SOF Training).
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 has been reported in Ireland that four suspected breaches of Russian sanctions have been reported to the Gardaí for investigation.
No further details on the investigations or the alleged conduct were reported.
See our earlier post for a case for criminal prosecution being referred by the Gardaí to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
It has been reported today that the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is investigating potential breaches of sanctions, after a “Made in Ireland” tag was found on components within drones used by Russia in Ukraine.
