We are starting to see a trickle of sanctions judgments from the UK. This year, the High Court has already dismissed challenges to UK sanctions brought by a Belarussian technology company; a Russian businessman seeking the release of his yacht; and now – in a judgment published last week – a dual UK/US national, Eugene Shvidler, whom the UK government deems to be affiliated with the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. Here I am going to offer some quick-and-dirty observations on the latest judgment, both on its own terms and within a broader context of UK sanctions law. First of all, Shvidler’s ..read more

As is well known, one of the advantages of being on holiday is having the time to read the US State Department official historian’s 259-page report on US and allied attempts to confiscate German property after World War II, published in 1997. The reason for doing so, quite apart from the topic being intrinsically fascinating, is the inevitable comparisons that are being drawn between German post-war reparations and Russia’s existing, but so far unenforceable, obligation to compensate Ukraine for its ongoing, barbaric invasion. So, as policymakers across G7 economies grapple with the dilemma of ..read more

Having spent a week in Tasmania, I am now back to work, and what better way to emerge from holiday-induced wooziness than by delving into a couple of sanctions-related developments right here, Down Under! (Before I do that, though, can I digress for a moment’s appreciation of an airline. Not only do Link Airways fly to Hobart in quaint, tiny propeller jets, but they also keep to schedule with a mere four passengers on board, who are rightly and appropriately treated to the entire plane’s supply of wine. Other airlines, take note!) So, on to sanctions. Today the Australian Senate’s Foreign Affa ..read more

In the world of academia, if it was not published in a peer-reviewed journal, it does not exist! I hope you will forgive me for using this post to share two of my latest attempts at playing the publications game. The first of these, ‘Trading with a Friend’s Enemy‘, is now out in the American Journal of International Law. This is an essay that forms part of a symposium on long-term ramifications of the war in Ukraine, and it traces the similarities and differences between Russia-related sanctions of today and trading with the enemy laws of yore. In essence, what it asks is this: If states could ..read more

One never knows what others might find interesting, and it so happens that a recent article of mine has unexpectedly generated a fair bit of attention on LinkedIn. The lovely people from AML Intelligence have asked me to provide a short summary for those who are curious about the paper’s argument but do not have the time or inclination to read the whole, international law jargon-ridden thing. It struck me as a good idea, and the result of it is now available here. What follows is a repost of the AML Intelligence piece. *** With international standards such as the FATF Recommendations and the U ..read more

This has been quite the delay, but I am back to blogging (I can almost hear the roar of jubilant crowds…). Given the state of the world, there is economic crime news aplenty, and so I will be posting regularly over the next several weeks. Perhaps the most bizarre development of the past month or so has been the unexpected airing of Season 2 in the never-ending saga of Equatorial Guinea v France, set in the grand halls of the International Court of Justice in the Hague. The original case had it all: a flamboyant vice-president of an oil-rich country (coincidentally, the son of the country’s pre ..read more

Since May 2018, the EU has been a trailblazer in mandating public access to beneficial ownership information, i.e. records of who actually owns companies as a matter of economic reality, as opposed to formal legal ownership. This came to abrupt halt yesterday, on 22 November 2022, with the EU’s Court of Justice ruling that the respective provisions of the 5th Money Laundering Directive were invalid. On the face of it, this judgment is a setback for corporate transparency. However, it is equally possible to view it as a course correction, not a disaster. In this post, I am going to share some p ..read more

In August 2022 the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed financial sanctions on the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, in a move that caused widespread consternation. This is potentially the first time that a truly decentralised cryptocurrency service provider — mixer or exchange — has become subject to sanctions. A month later, a group of US citizens supported by the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of OFAC’s designation of Tornado Cash. More recently, a separate lawsuit was launched in October 2022 by the advocacy group Coin Ce ..read more

A couple of weeks ago the Financial Times reported that the UK’s National Crime Agency had called for extending anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CTF) rules to cryptocurrency mixers. The Financial Times writes: ‘Around 15 per cent of all proceeds of crime was routed through mixers in 2021, according to Elliptic, a group that analyses cryptocurrency transactions. Well-known services include Wasabi Wallet, Samourai Wallet and Helix, whose US founder Larry Dean Harmon pleaded guilty to money laundering charges in August last year. Wasabi, which launched in 2018, operates ..read more

Russia-related sanctions add urgency to one of the most complex, and largely unresolved, questions in the law and policy of targeted sanctions. Should the buck stop with the individuals involved in sanctionable conduct or should asset freezes and travel bans also be imposed on their family members? Take the example of Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s long-standing – or should I say long-lying? – foreign minister who has been subjected to US, EU, UK, Canadian and Australian sanctions. Based on an investigation by Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, The Times gave us a glimpse into the charmed l ..read more