Selected features of the recent ‘Rosneft’ judgment by the Court of Justice of the European Union deal with the EU law of embargoes and economic sanctions. It has altered the judicial review mechanism in such matters because it allows foreign companies to seek ‘preventative’ preliminary rulings before the Court of Justice to challenge national implementing measures of EU embargoes even before the measures are operative. This adds to the already existing EU judicial review mechanism. At the same time, the decision in ‘Rosneft’ is also interesting because it elaborates on the EU law aspects of criminal sanctions applied by EU Member States for breaches of embargoes as well as on how to interpret certain technical concepts of the EU Russia embargo.
Global Trade and Customs Journal