Ukraine in Arabic | EU sanctions on Iran oil tanker firm annulled
KYIV/Ukraine in Arabic/ In July, the Luxembourg-based General Court ruled there were no grounds to blacklist the NITC in the bloc after the company contested the designation.
The EU did not appeal the decision.
"We are glad to see the (European) Council accept the judgment of the EU court that the sanctions were unlawful, although it is regrettable that they did not see fit to lift the sanctions sooner," Rovine Chandrasekera of law firm Stephenson Harwood, which represented the NITC, said on Tuesday.
“After the (EU) court issued an initial ruling on the illegality of the sanctions against the NITC, the EU had 70 days to protest at the ruling, and since the EU didn’t use this opportunity, the EU sanctions against the NITC has now been definitely annulled,” Managing Director of the NITC Ali Akbar Safayee said in a press conference in Tehran today.
The General Court of the European Union annulled the sanctions against Iranian businessman and five firms, namely, Sorinet Commercial Trust (SCT), Sharif University of Technology, National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), Moallem Insurance Company (MIC) and Sina Bank.
The rulings in respect to businessman Babak Zanjani’s Sorinet Commercial Trust, Sharif University of Technology, and the NITC were passed on July 3, 2014.
The verdict regarding Moallem Insurance Company was handed down on July 10, 2014, while the decision on Sina Bank was issued on June 4, 2014.
Since the judgments were not appealed within the designated two months, they have now come into effect.
After the EU announcement, Britain also ended asset freeze on five Iranian entities and a tradesman after the EU General Court issued rulings on the annulment of sanctions against Iran.
In mid-August, Iran called on the European countries to comply with the rulings of the EU courts on the annulment of the sanctions against Tehran.
“The EU’s executive and administrative bodies should respect the European court rulings and undertake to comply and exercise the verdicts,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham told reporters.
In July, the General Court of the European Union (7th chamber, extended composition) annulled the listing of the National Iranian Tanker Company on the European Union’s targeted sanctions relating to Iran.
That was one in a series of annulments by the European court of the designations of Iranian individuals and companies from the EU sanctions list. Yet, the EU still shrugs off putting the rulings into effect.
