Sanctions 2026

FRANCE Law and Practice Contributed by: William Julié, Amélie Beauchemin and Camille Gosson, WJ Avocats

ogy for military use, navigational instruments, drone engines, chemicals, cement and asphalt, helium, diamonds and gold. The 21st package (July 2026) further expanded these prohibitions, adding on the export side specialised metals, alloys, propellants and drone-related equipment, and on the import side certain metals, ores, car parts, glass products and imitation pearls. 6. Civil Litigation and Arbitration 6.1 Force Majeure Under Article 1218 of the French Civil Code, three conditions must be met for force majeure to suspend a contractual obligation: • the event preventing the execution of the obligation was not foreseeable; • the event’s origin does not depend on the person under the obligation concerned; and • the inexecution could not have been prevented with appropriate measures other than the one initially anticipated. In 2020, the French Supreme Court, the Cour de cassation, ruled that the freezing of a person’s assets under sanctions did not constitute a case of force majeure, as it did not meet the second condi - tion ( Cass ., ass . plén ., 10 juill . 2020 , P + B + R + I , No 18 - 18 . 542 et 18 - 21 . 814 ). The opposite approach would have offered sanctioned persons the possibility of relying on the restrictive measures to justify non-compliance with their obliga - tions as debtors, which would have undermined the sanctions’ legitimacy. To guard against sanctions imposed by France, the EU, the UN or third countries (notably the USA, whose sanctions, while not formally binding on French per - sons, are widely complied with), French parties should include a contractual clause anticipating sanctions on either side and setting out a remedy. 6.2 Enforcement When sanctions issues arise in enforcing French or foreign judgments in France, courts apply a classical

approach: examining whether the judge had jurisdic - tion, whether the decision complies with French public order, and whether it contravenes French law. Exequa - tur is refused if any condition is not met. As UN, EU and national sanctions prohibit certain behaviours in France, such as the use of frozen assets, a judicial decision that would provide for the transfer of money from a frozen bank account would not be recognised and executed. An appeal against the initial refusal is unlikely to succeed, since the same law would apply. The only recourse is to seek a Treasury derogation or wait for the sanctions to be lifted. At French level, the Minister of Economy and Finance decides on the names to include in France’s sanc - tions lists. At EU level, the Council, on the basis of proposals from three working committees – COEST (Eastern Europe and Central Asia), RELEX (Foreign Relations Counsellors) and COREPER II (Permanent Representatives Committee – Part II) – decides which natural and legal persons to sanction. In both regimes, therefore, the process is entirely political. 7.2 Scope of Designation Under Article 2 (1) of Decision 2014/145/CFSP and Regulation 269/2014, “all funds and economic resources belonging to, or owned, held or controlled by” sanctioned natural and legal persons shall be fro - zen. In its FAQs, the Commission of the EU explicitly states that for companies owned or controlled by listed persons, “it can be presumed that the control also extends to the assets of that entity, and that any funds or economic resources made available to that entity would reach or benefit the listed person”, with Article 2 applying accordingly. This amounts to an indirect designation through ownership or control by another directly designated person. Although non-binding, the FAQs are strictly applied by all EU actors. 7. Designation, Compliance and Circumvention 7.1 Executive Body

148 CHAMBERS.COM