High Court rejects 1st de-listing application under Sanctions & Anti-Money Laundering Act

15/03/23

The Administrative Court yesterday rejected the first challenge to a UK sanctions listing, brought by a Belarus technology company called LLC Synesis.

LLC Synesis (also US and EU sanctioned) was added to the UK Belarus targeted sanctions list for providing video surveillance system to the Belarus state which could be used in the suppression of protestors. Synesis challenged the decision not to remove it from the sanctions list when it had asked the Government to review the designation. The Court rejected its application for a court review under the Sanctions & Anti-Money Laundering Act finding that the decision not de-list it was not unreasonable or disproportionate. Points of interest for future cases:

• The threshold for UK, listing, ie “reasonable grounds to suspect” that a person fulfils the listing criteria, is a well established test in UK law. It means the decisionmaker must consider all material or information known to him or which should have been within his knowledge following reasonable inquiry.  It does not require a finding of fact but the assessment of available information and material.

• The role of the Court when reviewing the decision under section 38 of the Act is not to stand in the decisionmaker’s shoes but to examine whether the Government’s decision was based on no evidence or was irrational, with a broad margin of appreciation in a context of expert Government decision-making. The EU threshold for judicial review was not materially different.

The Judgment can be found here.