The General Court of the EU Court of Justice decided to confirm sanctions on Yanukovych financial assets for the period from March 2015 to March 2016 on September 15. The decision also affects Yanukovych’s son Oleksandrs and the former Ukrainian leader’s chief of administration Andriy Klyuyev. However, Yanukovych’s legal battles seem to bear him out since the Court cancelled sanctions from March 2014 to March 2015. Motivations relate to the fact that the EU institutions did impose asset-freezing on the basis of letter of March 2014 from the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine, which did not give enough evidence of the activities for which they have been sentenced, namely embezzlement of state funds and illegal international transfers outside Ukraine for personal enrichment.

According to experts, however, the decision does not change the current situation of the former leader and his staff as their European bank accounts and properties will remain seized because, in the meantime, the EU has extended the sanctions until March 2017. For this reason, the European Union does not seem concerned about the Court decision, although it could represent an embarrassing precedent.
Yanukovych’s star-lawyer, Thomas Beazley, is going to sue the European Union against both the confirmation and the extension of the sanctions. It goes without saying that to positively thwart future lawsuits, the EU action against Yanukovych and his staff should be supported by a more substantial evidence and provable facts.
In general, the EU sanctions system against the former Ukrainian government regarded sixteen people after the situation in Ukraine deteriorated in 2013. All of them have already sued the EU as early as spring 2014 obtaining, in seven cases, a favourable judgement.

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