Financial Sanctions

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Investment Arbitration as Ransom? The EU Sanctions Regime and ‘Administrative Chill’

October 15, 2026

Introduction and Factual Background: Fridman v Luxembourg In February 2022, shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the European Union placed Mikhail Fridman on its sanctions list. The designation subjected the Russian-Israeli businessman’s funds and economic resources to an asset freeze, affecting interests held through Luxembourg - including his 37.9% ownership of the investment group LetterOne. Luxembourg consequently became the focal point in Fridman’s efforts to challenge the sanctions and recover access to his investments. Those efforts would eventually place the country in the position of defending its first known investment treaty arbitration. The arbitration commenced in 2024, with Fridman seeking approximately $16 billion in compensation. His claim invokes the 1989 Bilateral Investment Treaty between the Belgium–Luxembourg Economic Union and the Soviet Union (BLEU – Russia BIT). While the details are not publicly available, his claim is that Luxembourg’s freezing of Fridman’s assets interfered with his investments protected under the BIT, allegedly amounting to indirect expropriation. As such, the proceedings bring Luxembourg’s implementation of EU sanctions measures within…

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Can China Lead the Way in Constraining Economic Coercion? Sanctions, Chokepoints, and the Perils of Convergence

July 22, 2026

Economic coercion remains ill-defined in international law, but its importance is growing ever more evident by the day. At various points, for example, a negotiated settlement to the US-Iran War has reportedly been blocked in key part by disagreements over $24 billion in assets frozen by the US Office of…

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Who Pays for Aggression? Ukraine’s Reparation Claims and Russian Frozen Assets

July 17, 2026

As Russia’s war against Ukraine rages, inflicting suffering on the country, its people, and economy, the Russian Central Bank (RCB) assets remain immobilised (i.e., frozen). Since December 2025, the EU, on whose territory a significant chunk of these assets has been immobilised, – €210 bn worth of assets out of approximately €290 bn  – modified the legal…

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Central Bank Sanctions Return to the CJEU

March 20, 2026

A Primer on the Russian Central Bank’s Legal Challenge to the Permanent Freezing of its Assets On March 3, 2026, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) announced that it has recently filed an action for annulment under Article 263 TFEU challenging Council Regulation (EU) 2025/2600 before the General Court of the EU. This regulation…

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Offsetting Inter-State Debt in International Law

January 6, 2026

Since the immobilization of Russian Central Bank (RCB) assets across multiple jurisdictions in response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, officials and commentators have debated the legal permissibility as well as the political and economic wisdom of using those assets to fund Ukraine’s defense and reconstruction. While the EU has agreed to issue a loan to Ukraine backed by…

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