On 9 May 2023, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced further details on the proposed eleventh package of EU sanctions against Russia. According to the press statement issued by the European Commission and related press reports, the proposed package mainly focuses on combatting circumvention of EU sanctions. More specifically, it would include the following additional measures: Ban of ‘shadow’ entities from Russia and third countries that are intentionally circumventing EU…
The G7 announced the creation of a new Enforcement Coordination Mechanism “to bolster compliance and enforcement of our measures and deny Russia the benefit of G7 economies” on the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The International Group of Seven (“G7”) is an intergovernmental forum whose members include the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and Japan, with the European Union as a “non-enumerated” member. As such, Germany, France and Italy are EU Member…
On 4 March 2022, the European Commission announced the introduction of the EU Sanctions Whistleblower Tool. According to the Commission, the Tool can be used to report on “past, ongoing or planned” EU sanctions violations, as well as attempts to circumvent these. Reports to the Commission can be made either directly by email or on an anonymous basis via the online platform provided through the Tool. Submitted reports will, in the first instance, be examined…
On 26 February 2021, the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Canada and the US released a coordinated statement condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine and committing to further restrictive measures, including: Ensuring that selected Russian banks are removed from the SWIFT messaging system, which facilitates global cross-border financial transfers. The affected banks have not yet been named.Imposing restrictive measures that will prevent the Russian Central Bank from deploying its international reserves in ways…