Sanctions 2025

UKRAINE Law and Practice Contributed by: Denys Bugay, Volodymyr Vashchenko and Denys Shkarovsky, VB Partners

imposing sanctions. This is a clear violation of the principle of transparency. • As a result of the principle of official investigation of the circumstances existing only in administrative proceedings, the court not only takes the measures required by law to clarify all the circumstances in the case but should also offer to submit evidence or require, on its own initiative, any evidence that is lacking. This results in state participants not facing the adverse consequences related to the non- performance of procedural obligations with respect to submission of documents and information, or mandatory participation in court sessions. • Clarification of primary information about the reasons for sanctions only at the stage of judicial review leads to the unjustified involvement as third parties of the initiators of sanctions impositions (Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Security Service of Ukraine, etc) and subordinate ministries, agen - cies and departments. • Involved state bodies actively provide the docu - ments, which were not examined and taken into account by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine when making decisions on imposing sanctions, and are improper and inad - missible evidence. In particular, by providing the materials of unfinished criminal proceedings, pre- trial investigation bodies try to put pressure on the internal conviction of judges, and in fact to entrust the Supreme Court with the tasks of criminal jus - tice and criminal process. • It is also common to provide documents marked “For official use”, or “Confidential”, which leads to the limitation of the rights of other participants in the process to get acquainted with the documenta - tion, as well as to the term of case consideration being prolonged. Quite often, documents marked “For official use” do not actually contain any “special” information. They might contain extracts from the registers of foreign jurisdictions, or general certificates. However, famil - iarisation with the above documents is carried out in a special manner: representatives cannot copy these documents, only read them and note down certain information. It is clear that it takes time to become familiar with the documents.

In order to gain access to documents marked “Con - fidential”, access to state secrets is required. This involves passing a special check by the Security Ser - vice of Ukraine, and this process alone takes between six and nine months. In addition, the examination of the documents marked “For official use” and “Confidential” is carried out in specially equipped courtrooms, which also leads to the consideration periods being prolonged, in view of the significant number of sanction cases. As a result of consideration of administrative case, the Supreme Court may declare the Decree of the President of Ukraine illegal and invalid, or dismiss the claim. Administrative Procedure for Lifting Sanctions First of all, it should be noted that the procedure for lifting sanctions in an administrative manner is not regulated in detail by law. The decision to lift sanctions is made by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, and is put into effect by the Decree of the President of Ukraine. The proposal to lift sanctions can be made by the same entities that initiated their imposition (Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, President of Ukraine, Cabinet of Min - isters of Ukraine, National Bank of Ukraine, Security Service of Ukraine). In light of the lack of legislative regulation of the mech - anism for lifting sanctions in the event of their errone - ous imposition, the administrative procedure is also lengthy. 4.2 Remedies The result of the procedures for lifting sanctions (judi - cial or administrative procedures) is the exclusion of a person from the sanctions list. This can be the basis for compensation for damag - es. However, this is a separate legal process, during which the plaintiff has the burden of proving the exist - ence of a direct causal link between the damages suf - fered and the sanctions imposed. There are no such precedents in Ukraine as yet.

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