On 16 July 2015, in Case T-207/15 R National Iranian Tanker Company v Council [2015], the General Court dismissed the National Iranian Tanker Company’s (NITC) application to suspend sanctions listing pending the conclusion of its application to annul its listing.
NITC’s listing was first annulled by the General Court in July 2014. NITC was subsequently re-listed in February 2015 (see Issue 35 of the Sanctions Alert). NITC then applied to annul this re-listing. NITC argued that the factual allegations relied on in support of its re-listing were identical in substance to those on which its initial listing had been based and which the Court declared unlawful in July 2014. Although the General Court found that there was a prima facie case for the Council of the EU to answer, the General Court determined that any future harm to NITC arising from the sanctions would be financial in nature. The General Court reasoned that suspending NITC’s listing was not necessary to prevent “serious and irreparable harm” because, if the listing was subsequently annulled, NITC would be able to obtain financial compensation for any loss caused by its listing. As such, the balance of the parties’ interests favoured the Council and the application for interim measures was dismissed.
