Fiji's Supreme Court delayed a U.S. bid to seize a $325 million superyacht allegedly belonging to a sanctioned Russian billionaire, granting the yacht's registered owner, Millemarin Investments, a temporary stay on a previous ruling that would have allowed the U.S. to seize the ship this week, according to documents from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Bloomberg reported June 2.

Russia announced new sanctions against a host of U.S. citizens, including a trade lawyer and several former and current U.S. attorneys, according to an unofficial translation of a May 21 notice. Among those designated were Kevin Wolf, an Akin Gump export control lawyer, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, U.S. Assistant Deputy Attorney General Lawrence Atkinson and other former and current district attorneys.

The EU General Court in a May 18 judgment rejected an application from Syrian businessman Amer Foz to annul the European Council actions listing and then maintaining his listing on the Syria sanctions list. Subjecting Amer Foz to sanctions due to his family business interests and association with his brother, Samer, whose sanctions listing predates Amer's, is "well founded," the court said.

The EU Court of Justice in a May 12 opinion dismissed Evariste Boshab's challenge of the General Court's decision to uphold his placement on the EU's Democratic Republic of the Congo sanctions list, according to an unofficial translation. Boshab had argued at the General Court and then at the ECJ that the European Council infringed on his right to be heard during the proceeding that saw his continued listing. The EU's high court said a formal hearing wasn't needed to guarantee an individual's right to be heard.

Fiji's High Court in a May 3 order gave the U.S. and local authorities permission to seize the Amadea, a $325 million mega-yacht whose ownership is in dispute. The U.S. said sanctioned Russian billionaire Suleyman Kerimov owns the yacht. A lawyer representing the company that the vessel is registered under told Bloomberg the yacht is owned by another businessman not on any sanctions lists. The High Court further gave lawyers representing this second businessman until May 4 to file a stay order, Bloomberg reported. The U.K. and the EU in March sanctioned Kerimov for his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The U.S. sanctioned him in 2018.

The EU General Court annulled the European Council acts keeping Ferdinand Ilunga Luyoyo on the EU's Democratic Republic of the Congo sanctions list. The court found that Ilunga Luyoyo, the former commander of the National Intervention Legion in the Congolese national police, no longer held the positions that landed him on the list and that the council failed to give sufficient evidence linking him and the security situation in the DRC, according to an unofficial translation.

The EU appointed Goulielmos Valasidis of Greece to the General Court, the European Council announced April 27. Eight other judges were reappointed: Geert De Baere and Paul Nihoul of Belgium; Sten Frimodt Nielsen and Jesper Svenningsen of Denmark; Krisztian Kecsmar of Hungary; Marc van der Woude of the Netherlands; and Maria Jose Costeira and Ricardo da Silva Passos of Portugal. Terms run Sept. 1, 2022, through Aug. 31, 2028.

The EU General Court upheld a lower court ruling that struck down the sanctions listings on former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his family members Gamal Mubarak, Alaa Mubarak, Heidy Rasekh, Khadiga El Gammal and Suzanne Saleh Thabet. The European Court of Justice had annulled the sanctions listings for Mubarak's family made in 2016 and 2017 and the 2018 listing of Mubarak himself. In March 2021, the EU reversed its Egypt sanctions, lifting restrictions on nine individuals. The General Court's April 6 ruling drops the sanctions imposed in 2018, 2019 and 2020. The court said it was unclear whether prior to implementing the sanctions, the European Council had fulfilled its duty to verify that the rights of defense and effective judicial protection were respected for the parties or that the council's actions were inadequate.

The U.K.'s more than $3.5 million fine of an unnamed British company over illegal exports of military goods (see 2204040020) lacks transparency, U.K. law firm Macfarlanes said in an April 19 post. The U.K.'s enforcement agency hasn't released any information about the violations that led to the fine despite it being the "largest penalty ever for breach of U.K. arms controls," the firm said.

Vietnam is prosecuting 11 Dai Minh Viet Inspection Co. executives and employees for submitting over 1,200 fraudulent certificates of inspection of imported goods used to allegedly smuggle 1,282 containers of second-hand machinery and equipment from Japan and Taiwan, the state-run CustomsNews reported April 17. The alleged scheme was discovered by the Saigon Port Zone 1 Customs Branch and the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department's Economic Policy Division, CustomsNews said. During the investigation, the police agency determined that Hoang Duy Tien, an officer of the Anti-Smuggling Team under the Economic Police Department of the HCM City Public Security, was the mastermind who established dozens of legal entities, named on customs declarations to import used goods to Vietnam.