The European Court of Justice confirmed sanctions regarding Viktor and Oleksandr Yanukovych

On October 19, 2017, the European Court of Justice confirmed the freezing of the funds of Viktor Yanukovych and Oleksandr Yanukovych. They challenged the all-European freezing order of funds during the period from March 6, 2015 until March 6, 2016. The Court decided that the freezing of the funds complied with the EU law and with the listing criterion used for the imposing of sanctions.

The European Council imposed sanctions over Viktor and Oleksandr Yanukovych on 5 March 2014 aiming to freeze the funds of persons identified as being responsible for the misappropriation of Ukrainian state funds. The main aim of such freeze was to help Ukrainian government to fully investigate the alleged misappropriation and later recover stolen funds. The sanctions are subject to annual review by the Council. Currently, sanction list consists of 15 former Ukrainian officials. In the course of previous three years, the EU had to cancel sanctions against 7 persons, due to the lack of progress of criminal investigations performed by the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine. Whether the sanctions would be prolonged in 2018 for another year depends on the ability of the PGO to show the interim results of investigations of economic crimes of those former officials.