Belgium’s Council of State has ruled that the Treasury department of the federal finance ministry is not authorised to decide whether frozen Russian assets may be released under certain conditions, De Tijd reported on Wednesday.
The ruling was handed down last Friday. Russia's BCS Bank brought the case in October 2024.
BCS Bank was itself added to the EU sanctions list in July this year. Before that, it had challenged the indirect freezing of its assets at Brussels-based securities depository Euroclear.
The freeze resulted from sanctions imposed on Euroclear’s Russian counterpart, the National Settlement Depository (NSD). Russia’s central securities depository has been on the EU sanctions list since June 2022.
Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, securities worth tens of billions of euros were frozen because they were held at Russian financial institutions and passed through the NSD.
Although those institutions' clients are generally not themselves sanctioned, their assets have remained frozen for years.
Related News
- Euroclear sues Russian Central Bank in Brussels court
- ‘Make Russia pay’: 122 EU lawmakers back appeal over frozen funds
- European Commission confirms frozen Russian assets still on the agenda
That situation has led to hundreds of requests for the release of assets. In Belgium, the power to rule on those requests had been assigned to the Treasury of the Federal Public Service Finance.
The Council of State has now found that this transfer of powers was defined too vaguely and too broadly.
According to De Tijd, the judgment means that all decisions already taken by the Treasury in other cases involving attempts by individuals and companies to recover Russian assets were also not legally valid.
The ruling does not mean that Russian assets will now be released. However, it has created uncertainty over what happens next.
Finance Minister Jan Jambon said his office was still studying the judgment.
