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- Oppression melts: Russians will have a real chance to withdraw their assets from the EU.
Oppression melts: Russians will have a real chance to withdraw their assets from the EU.
The Belgian State Council has cancelled the refusal in one of the key cases on unblocking the assets of Russians. The court recognized that the Treasury had no right to make a decision on the frozen funds — the law did not provide for such a mechanism. For Russian investors, this is fundamentally important — it was the Treasury that refused many other Russians who sued the Belgian Ministry of Finance, demanding that their assets be unfrozen. The decision of the State Council can significantly speed up the process of withdrawing frozen funds from the EU. How this can be done is in the "Izvestia" material.
Why have the chances of unblocking Russians' assets in the EU increased?
Until 2022, Russian investors actively bought foreign securities through domestic brokers. At the same time, investments were made through a single channel — the National Settlement Depository (NSD). After the introduction of the first sanctions against Russia by the European Union, NSD came under restrictions, and the assets of our citizens were blocked in Europe without the possibility of their withdrawal.
At the same time, sanctions were not imposed directly against ordinary investors. In fact, their funds have not been withdrawn, but frozen: they still belong to the original owners, but it is virtually impossible to dispose of them, since they are stored in NSD, which remains under sanctions. The EU Regulation provides for mechanisms to achieve the unblocking of such assets.
Russian investors are trying to challenge the restriction of their rights and take advantage of the European withdrawal mechanism. Their arguments boil down to the fact that no personal sanctions were imposed against them, the rights to dispose of assets remain, and the procedure for freezing them was carried out with violations.
In Belgium, the decision to freeze Russian assets was made by the Ministry of Finance, so it was to him that investors initially addressed the relevant requirements. However, since 2023, responses have been received from the country's treasury department subordinate to this ministry. Since the fall of 2025, it has been actively denying Russians their applications.
Before that, Russian investors were able to obtain permits from Belgium to receive funds. In 2024 alone, 186 positive decisions were made to withdraw Russian assets from Euroclear, said the founder of the international legal service. Razmorozka.com Alexey Bogdanov. However, since the beginning of 2026, investors have faced a drastic change in practice.
Now one of these treasury refusals has been declared illegal, which can significantly change the course of other asset unblocking cases. It follows from the materials of the State Council that on September 11, the transfer of powers from the Ministry of Finance to the Treasury was declared illegal. Consequently, the refusal issued to the investor under this scheme turned out to be illegitimate.
What does the decision of the State Council mean for Russian investors
The decision significantly strengthens the position of those investors who have been refused a refund license, said Evgeny Konovalov, Head of the Financial Law and Capital Markets Practice at Delcredere Bar Association. Now there is a judicial act that explicitly established that the mechanism in place for making such decisions was illegal. This provides a strong enough argument to challenge the refusals.
Potentially, we are talking about dozens of cases of Russian investors with portfolios worth millions of euros who sued the Belgian Ministry of Finance, lawyer Olga Plekhanova believes. Many of them use the same decision-making scheme and the same approaches of the Ministry of Finance, which have already been criticized in the pilot case.
— This is a fundamentally important victory. The State can no longer rely on the cancelled refusal and must return to the consideration of the application, taking into account the court's findings. This means that we must change the approach to considering all other applications from Russian investors," emphasized Alexey Bogdanov.
The State Council itself explicitly states that after the cancellation of the refusal, the Treasury should review the application again, as a result, it can theoretically allow unblocking, said Evgeny Konovalov.
The prospects of such cases are now highly appreciated, Alexey Bogdanov believes. According to him, there are grounds to expect the cancellation of a significant part of the decisions that investors are appealing.
How can Russians achieve the unblocking of assets in the EU
The Russians' chances of withdrawing assets have increased significantly, financial lawyer Alexei Bogdanov agreed. The investor, who has already received a refusal, now needs to appeal it, referring to the decision of the Belgian State Council 267.613. This is not a quick process: for a full-fledged judicial strategy, it is reasonable to set about two years, although the consideration of a particular case may end sooner or later.
At the same time, it is important to understand that filing a lawsuit in the EU and conducting this case involve significant expenses for legal services. This is advisable for investors with a portfolio of $15,000 or more.
After the pilot solution, some of the issues will no longer have to be proven from scratch, Olga Plekhanova noted. Therefore, lawyers are counting on speeding up the consideration of cases that are currently in the State Council. If the deadline for the old refusal has already expired, one of the possible options may be to submit a new application, Evgeny Konovalov believes.
The pilot case shows that judicial control works and administrative practices can be changed, Olga Plekhanova emphasized.
However, obtaining a Belgian permit is only one of the stages of returning funds. After that, it is necessary to actually make a transfer through Euroclear, foreign brokers, banks and withdraw money to Russia. Each of these stages may have its own technical and sanctions issues. Therefore, it is not worth waiting for the immediate receipt of money, it may take time. Still, a positive decision would mean a major shift in the case.
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