France – acquittal of ship’s captain charged with sanctions violations

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.

United Kingdom – 37 ongoing oil price cap investigations

The BBC is reporting the results of a Freedom of Information Act request it has made to OFSI.

The response itself is not currently on the website of either OFSI or HM Treasury.

The BBC is reporting the following statistics:

  • 52 investigations opened since December 2022
  • 15 of those have been concluded with no further action taken; and
  • 37 of the investigations are ongoing.

As per our earlier post, in an earlier Freedom of Information response OFSI confirmed that as of April 2024 it had started 12 investigations of which 9 had been discontinued without action taken.

As such 40 new oil price cap investigations have been started since April 2024.

Since April six investigations have been concluded.

Germany – raids and investigation relating to sanctioned car exports

It is being reported (here and here) that the German authorities have conducted raids on business and residential premises in the town of Königswinter in relation to a criminal investigation into the alleged exports of luxury cars to Russia shipped through third countries.

The raids are said to have taken place in late September and a criminal case has been opened. Cars, cash and evidence were all seized as part of the raids.

The sales are alleged to have totalled more than €4 million.

Netherlands – company convicted and fined for aircraft part exports

Further to our post of yesterday about an individual sentenced to 32 months for exporting aircraft parts to Russia in breach of EU sanctions, the Rotterdam District court has released a second judgment for the conviction of the company involved.

The company has been sentenced to pay a fine of €165,826. The prosecutor was seeking a fine of all the funds in the company’s bank accounts at the time it was raided, but it is unclear from the judgment whether the fine is that sum.

The company is not named in the judgment.

Netherlands – two years and eight months sentence for exporting sanctioned goods to Russian airlines

On 3 October 2024, the District Court in Rotterdam sentenced an individual to 32 months in jail, as well as confiscation of $8,000 and €250,000 in cash, as well as the forfeiture of all the stock-in-trade and business bank accounts.

The individuals had exported over 460 prohibited aircraft parts to three different Russian airlines: i) Ural Airlines; ii) S7 Engineering LLC; and iii) JSC Siberia Airlines.

The defendant had created a paper trail to mask the destination of the exports which purported to show exports to Serbia, Turkey and Tajikistan. Internal documents, however, linked the exports to the Russian customers.

Messages on seized phones included: “We’re going to keep loading until we’re arrested”.

Netherlands – Prosecution Service seeks 2-year sentence and confiscation for dual-use and other exports to Russia

The Dutch Prosecution Service has issued a press release stating that they are seeking a sentence for a 42-year old individual consisting of:

i) a 24 month custodial sentence of which 10 months is suspended;

ii) confiscation of all the proceeds of crime obtained from the breaches of sanctions; and

iii) forfeiture of the company’s stock.

As per our earlier posts the man was arrested in July 2023, for exports of electronic components and other dual use goods to Russia via Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The man is also alleged to have falsified records to mask the true destination of the exports.

In May this year the man had won a court hearing allowing his company to keep trading pending trial.

Estonia – trade sanctions confiscations and investigations by Customs

Details of confiscations conducted by Estonia’s Customs office have been reported including the confiscation of goods being exported to Russia at border crossings in breach of EU sanctions. The confiscations include €3,275,295 in cash, electronics parts and equipment, a Starlink antenna, drones, night vision goggles, firearms and ammunition, as well as consumer goods such as jewelry, wine, and diving equipment.

It is also being reported that some of the confiscations are now the subject of ongoing investigations.

Norway – Customs Office sanctioned exports confiscation statistics

It is being reported, based on Freedom of Information requests made to Norway’s custom office by the Barents Observer, that 23 confiscations of luxury and other goods being exported to Russia have taken place since 2023.

One of the confiscations was at an unspecified port, and the other 22 were at the land crossing at Storskog, with 10 during 2023 and 12 so far in 2024.

The reporting makes no mention of other enforcement actions taken after the confiscation.

Germany – two people arrested for providing access to sanctioned Russian broadcasters

It is being reported that German authorities in the city of Karlsruhe have arrested two individuals. The individuals were husband who is a German national and wife of Ukrainian nationality.

It is alleged that they made available internet access to the sanctioned broadcasting channels Rossiya-1 and Russia Today. EU sanctions prohibit for a person “to broadcast or to enable, facilitate or otherwise contribute to broadcast” of these channels.

Raids on the couple’s home gathered evidence and €40,000. The authorities also obtained a freezing order over a bank account containing €120,000.

Europe hits 300th concluded sanctions enforcement action since 2017

With the news of OFSI imposing a civil penalty, Europe has today hit its 300th successfully-concluded enforcement action in relation to trade and financial sanctions and export controls since the start of 2017.

To mark the occasion we are publishing updated enforcement graphs which we last posted back in January when this blog first went live.

Total number of fines/penalties/convictions: 2017-2024

As the graph shows 2024 has, to date, been the most prolific in terms of sanctions enforcement in recent years with 69 so far this year. Already there have been three times as many successfully-concluded enforcement actions in Europe in 2024 as there were in 2017.

Total value of fines/penalties: 2017-2024

While the volume of enforcement has increased, the shape of this graph illustrates that the value of the fines imposed did not keep pace in the years following when the UK and French financial services regulators having imposed fines of £102m, €50m, and £38m.

After several years of plateau 2024 is, however, showing signs of acceleration with fines of over €32m imposed so far this year – more than double the figure for 2023.

Russian / Belarusian sanctions enforcement

Focusing just on enforcement of the sanctions against Russia and Belarus, perhaps unsurprisingly, the picture varies across Europe, although the total of 111 examples to date is worth stressing in and of itself.

This graph includes only enforcement actions that have concluded with a fine, penalty, conviction or confiscation. A total of 18 countries show no examples, although it is possible that there are such examples and they have not been made public. Poland, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Latvia are the only countries with more than 10 examples.

This is another way of looking at the same data. Again, this is specific to the Russia/Belarus sanctions, and is the number of concluded enforcements. This does not reflect the scale of the fines. A few countries dominate the picture.

Current investigations

Looking at publicly-available data on the number of current/live investigations reveals a similar picture. Many states appear to be currently inactive, while there are more than 2000 investigations which are reported as ongoing across Europe. That is a figure which bears repeating – more than 2000 ongoing regulatory/criminal sanctions investigations across Europe.

It should be remembered, however, that for most states such information has not been made public. In Germany alone nearly 2000 investigations have been started since early 2022, but the information is limited on how many of these remain active.

© 2009- Duane Morris LLP. Duane Morris is a registered service mark of Duane Morris LLP.

The opinions expressed on this blog are those of the author and are not to be construed as legal advice.

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