AUSTRIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Anna Zeitlinger, Gabriel Lansky, Philip Goeth and Konstantin Oppolzer, Lansky Ganzger Goeth + Partner Rechtsanwälte GmbH
1.4.3 Domestic and/or Supranational Measures Generally, Austria is directly bound by EU sanctions. Furthermore, Austria follows UN sanctions, as UN sanctions are mainly adopted by the EU, and, thus, are directly applicable in Austria. The Austrian Sanctions Act 2024 does on one hand allow the adoption of unilateral national sanctions. In practice, however, Austria does not impose domestic national sanctions as the legality of such unilateral measures is questionable in light of the EU treaties and case-law, and it could be argued that some national sanctions imposed by member states are inconsistent with EU law. However, Austria may, as any other EU member state, regulate the penalties for EU sanctions violations. In this regard, Austria must still harmonise it’s penal code with the EU Directive of 2024 on the definition of criminal offences and penalties for the violation of European Union restrictive measures. The Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) is competent for the making available and unfreezing of frozen funds in case a financial market participant is involved. If no financial market participant is involved, the Austrian Ministry of Finance is competent for the making available and unfreezing of frozen funds. Other authorities may be competent depending on the spe - cific matter. For matters involving economic (sectoral) sanctions, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism is the national competent author - ity. It decides, among others, derogation requests for the provision of certain services to Russian subsidiar - ies or the export of sanctioned products to sanctioned nations. 2.2 Enforcement 2.2.1 Enforcement Responsibilities Regarding financial restrictive measures (ie, asset freeze), the operators themselves must apply and essentially enforce the sanctions. For example, a bank must block accounts if the funds are owned or controlled by a sanctioned person. This is because sanctions must be applied swiftly and any delay could 2. Overview of Regulatory Field 2.1 Primary Regulators
lead to asset flight which would jeopardise the object of the sanctions. In case of the freezing of companies or real estate, the Ministry of Interior notifies the respective court, which is in charge of maintaining the register, and requests the inclusion of a note in the respective register stat - ing that either the assets of the company are, or the concerned real estate is, frozen. The inclusion of such note in the register is, however, not constitutive for the freezing but merely declaratory to inform the public about the status of a company or real estate. The concerned company or the owner of the real estate may challenge the court’s decision and request the deletion of such note, if it disagrees with the con - clusion that the owner or the asset should be consid - ered as (indirectly) sanctioned. In relation to criminal enforcement, the prosecution is primary responsible for sanctions breaches that amount to a criminal violation. 2.2.2 Breaching Sanctions The breach of sanctions can amount to a criminal offence, if the value of the assets or services in ques - tion exceeds EUR100,000, or if sanctioned goods are exported to a sanctioned nation in violation of an export prohibition. The penalty for this criminal offence is imprisonment of six months to five years. The criminal law provisions and penalties will likely change in the near future with further implementation of Directive (EU) 2024/1226. To the extent a statutory penalty for a sanction vio - lation is more than one year of imprisonment, such violation could count as a predicate crime for money laundering under Austrian criminal law. If proceeds that derive out of such a sanction violation are con - cealed, the perpetrator could be also prosecuted for money laundering. The matter of money laundering and sanction violation became more relevant with the adoption of the Austrian Sanctions Act 2024, which entered into force in February 2025 and introduced statutory penalties of up to five years’ imprisonment for certain sanctions violations, instead of a maximum sentence of one year’s imprisonment for a sanctions
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