Work Area: Sanctions

A Dutch court has upheld an investment treaty award ordering Bahrain to pay €214 million to two Iranian state-owned banks for the “politically motivated” expropriation of their local banking venture in the wake of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

23 April 2025

Ukraine’s Naftogaz says it has taken a “first step” towards seizing Russian state-owned assets in France to satisfy a US$5 billion investment treaty award – while in a separate dispute it is hit with a billion-dollar penalty by a Russian court over its failure to halt an ICC arbitration. 

17 April 2025

The UK’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) has issued a general licence allowing payments to arbitrators and arbitral institutions from parties subject to the country’s Russia and Belarus sanctions regimes.

16 April 2025

A Russian court has upheld injunctions obtained by a Gazprom affiliate in a long-running dispute with UniCredit over unpaid bonds that has led to conflicting decisions between the Russian and UK courts.

10 April 2025

The Court of Appeal in London has refused to restrain Russian litigation against entities linked to the Renaissance Capital group to enforce an LCIA arbitration clause, saying it had been “deliberately kept in the dark” about the relationship between the party seeking the injunction and the defendants in Russia. 

10 April 2025

Russian bank VTB’s German subsidiary has filed a complaint with Russia’s Constitutional Court over a law allowing the country’s courts to assert exclusive jurisdiction over commercial disputes involving sanctioned Russian parties, which has been used to bar it from pursuing HKIAC arbitration against its parent. 

28 March 2025

A Moscow court has enforced a US$99 million award won by a sanctioned Russian television company in a Swiss arbitration against Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash’s Group DF. 

25 March 2025

German energy company RWE says it prevailed in its ICC arbitration with Gazprom’s export arm over gas supplies halted following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

20 March 2025

The Russian Arbitration Association has filed an amicus curiae brief with the Court of Justice of the European Union, urging it to adopt a narrow reading of the “no claims” clause in the EU’s Russia sanctions regulation or risk negative effects including potential investment treaty claims. 

19 March 2025

A Paris court has blocked a Dutch supplier of night vision goggles from executing a two-decade-old pair of ICC awards against Iraqi state assets that were previously frozen because of EU sanctions.

07 March 2025