Sanctions 2026

AUSTRALIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Dennis Miralis, Jack Dennis and Phillip Salakas, Nyman Gibson Miralis

• a contractual dealing, such as “payment of inter - est on accounts holding controlled assets and payments required under contracts, agreements or obligations made before the date on which the assets became controlled assets”. The ASO requires all applications to contain “suffi - cient detail of a specific contravention to which the application relates” and should not be made unless “there is a clear likelihood of a sanctions contraven - tion occurring”. The application process will likely take at least three months and will take even longer for complex activi- ties or those in high-risk countries or regions. Clients can request expedited treatment if there are critical commercial deadlines. 2.3.2 Provision of Legal Services There is no express exception for the provision of legal services to designated persons; activities associat- ed with such services are likely to breach Australian sanctions law. Therefore, providing legal services to a designated person requires a permit. However, there are two important caveats. First, there is a general permit authorising certain deal- ings in association with the provision of certain ser- vices directly related to the provision of legal advice or legal representation (SAN-2024-00138). This permit was reissued 30 October 2024 and is set to expire by 30 October 2026. Second, the appeal in Deripaska v Minister for Foreign Affairs featured the High Court of Australia ruling that a designation cannot prevent designated individuals from accessing legal services to challenge the valid- ity of decisions or actions under the Constitution or the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth). Practically speaking, this means a designated person can engage a lawyer to challenge a designation on constitutional or admin- istrative grounds and the lawyer can provide such services, irrespective of whether there is a Ministerial permit to do so. This also allows preliminary or ancillary steps, such as preliminary conferences, the transfer of retainer

funds to a trust account, the generation or sending of documents to the designated person or “any inquiry of fact” required to determine such remedies. 2.4 Reporting There are no continuous reporting obligations under Australian sanctions law. However, there are record- keeping obligations and certain government officials have information-gathering powers. Record-Keeping Obligations Two types of records must be retained, as follows. • Any records or documents relating to an applica- tion must be retained for five years by the appli - cant. Importantly, this obligation remains even if the permit is not granted. The five years begin from the date the permit was granted or, if it was refused, from the date the application was made. • Any records or documents relating to the person’s compliance with any conditions of the permit must be retained for five years, beginning on the last day on which an action to which the permit relates was done. Information-Gathering Powers A “CEO of a designated Commonwealth entity” can require a person to give information or docu- ments to determine compliance with a sanction law. A designated Commonwealth entity includes DFAT, the Department of Defence, the Australian Customs Service and AUSTRAC. These are called section 19 notices. The section 19 notice will specify the infor- mation and/or documents sought and the timing and manner in which the notice must be complied with. Information cannot be withheld on the basis that its provision will be self-incriminating. However, neither the information given – nor the giving of the document – is admissible as evidence against the individual in any criminal proceedings or in any proceedings that would expose the individual to a penalty, apart from proceedings for: • providing false or misleading information given in connection with a sanction law; or • failing to comply with the requirement to provide information or documents.

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