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Following a successful appeal to the General Court of the European Union (“GCEU”) in relation to their previous listings, and new applications to the GCEU, two entities have been delisted by the Council of the European Union.

Tri-Ocean Energy, a Egyptian energy company active in the oil and gas sector, and its subsidiary, Tri-Ocean Trading, had been listed by the Council of the European Union under the EU’s Syrian Sanctions regime (Decision 2013/255/CFSP and Regulation (EU) No 36/2012 (as amended)).

In three judgments on 9 September 2016, the GCEU annulled the Council’s decisions (the judgments can be found here, here and here), concluding that the documents submitted by the Council in support of its listing (two newspaper articles) “are not sufficient to support the allegations against the applicant” - “viewed as a whole, the evidence presented […] does not constitute a set of indicia sufficiently specific, precise and consistent […] to establish to the requisite legal standard the merits of the allegations made against the applicant” (see, e.g. Case T-709/14 at [46]-[54]).

The relisting of these companies had relied on precisely the same evidence. On 15 November 2016, by Council Implementing Decision (CFSP) 2016/2000 and Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/1996, the Council has completely removed the companies from its list.

Pushpinder Saini QC, Brian Kennelly QC and Ravi Mehta acted for the Applicant.
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