Sanctions 2025

AUSTRALIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Dennis Miralis and Jack Dennis, Nyman Gibson Miralis

consequences arising from Israel’s policies and prac - tices in the occupied Palestinian territory. Five days after the opinion, the Australian government imposed Magnitsky-style sanctions on seven Israeli individuals and one organisation for “settler violence”. On 10 June 2025, the Honourable Penny Wong, along with the Foreign Ministers of Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom announced sanc - tions against far-right Israeli politicians, Itamar Ben- Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich for inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. This was formally enacted the next day with Magnitsky-style sanctions against these individuals for serious violations and serious abuses of human rights. Although the recent Australian Senate inquiries rec - ognised the lack of sanctions arising from the Israel- Palestinian conflict as a point of serious inconsist - ency in the application of Australian sanctions law, the Australian government continues to move slowly in comparison to other ongoing situations. Cyber sanctions Australia continues to pursue its co-ordinated approach with its allies in sanctions against transna - tional cybercrime, with continuing co-ordinated inter - national investigative and law enforcement efforts, resulting in the simultaneous sanctioning of entities. This was seen in 2024 with Operation Cronos, a co- ordinated law enforcement action against the LockBit ransomware group and comprised the efforts of Aus - tralia, the UK, the USA, France, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Sweden, Canada, and the Netherlands – with Finland’s support. This resulted in Australia imposing its first and second cyber sanctions against Aleksandr Ermakov and Dmitry Yuryevich Khoroshev. DFAT has labelled this 18-month investigation and resultant sanctioning as “best practice methodology”.

Since then, additional cyber sanctions have been imposed against three Russian nationals who were identified as senior personnel of the Evil Corp cyber - crime group in October 2024, as well as against a Russian entity, ZServers, and five other Russian nationals on 12 February 2025 who were accused of being cybercriminals involved in the compromise of Medibank and the theft of almost ten million health insurance records of Australians in 2022. Relatedly, on 3 February 2025, the Australian govern - ment imposed, for the first time, counter-terrorism financing sanctions on an entity based entirely online: the white supremacist terrorist network Terrorgram. The Australian government reiterated its commitment to “disrupting the activities of terrorists and violent extremists and preventing them from recruiting and radicalising people online”. As cyber-attacks are increasing and DFAT continues to develop their sanctions methodology, there may be a correlating uptick in sanctions – specifically those under the Magnitsky-style regulations.

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