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On 11 September 2026, the Belgian Council of State annulled a decision of the General Administration of the Treasury refusing to release assets held with Euroclear.
The judgment concerns the way the Treasury has been deciding applications for authorisations and derogations under EU restrictive measures, and its interest lies there rather than in the case itself.
It neither invalidates EU sanctions nor releases any frozen assets.
The validity of EU sanctions was not in issue
EU asset freezes are imposed by directly applicable EU regulations. On that general framework, see Understanding EU Restrictive Measures: Rights, Recourses, and Banking Obligations. Belgian authorities do not decide whether a person or an entity is designated. The designation itself is a separate question, with its own remedy before the EU courts, considered in EU Sanctions: Challenging a Listing (Delisting) and What It Means for Banks.
Regulation (EU) No 269/2014 contains a series of derogations from the freeze imposed by its Article 2, in Articles 4, 5, 5a to 5c, 6 and 6b. Each has its own conditions, and it is for the national competent authority to apply them.
A question of competence
Under the Royal Decree of 12 December 2023 designating the competent authority for tasks under financial restrictive measures, adopted pursuant to Article 2 of the Act of 13 May 2003 (Moniteur belge, 18 December 2023), decisions of this kind belong to the Minister of Finance.
By Ministerial Decree of 13 December 2023 delegating the power to take decisions under Article 2, second paragraph, of that Royal Decree (Moniteur belge, 20 December 2023), that power was delegated to the Administrator-General of the Treasury.
The Council of State annulled the decision of 15 July 2024 by which the Administrator-General had refused an application for the release of assets held with Euroclear.
The ground is that delegation, which the Council of State held to be defined too broadly and too vaguely.
The refusal was therefore taken by an authority that was not validly empowered to take it. The defect goes to the power of the author of the act, and it is not a finding that the conditions for a release were met.
The ground does not depend on the applicant’s situation
A defect of competence attaches to the decision, not to the merits of the application.
It operates in the same way whether the applicant is itself designated or whether it is a non-designated investor whose assets are caught behind a designated intermediary. The two situations differ completely on the substance, but not on the question of who was empowered to sign the refusal.
The ministerial decree was set aside, not annulled
The Ministerial Decree of 13 December 2023 was not the object of the application and has not been annulled.
The Council of State disapplied it for the purposes of the case, as Article 159 of the Constitution requires of every court. Earlier decisions taken under the same delegation remain in place unless and until each of them is successfully challenged.
Pending proceedings
Where an applicant has already challenged a comparable refusal before the Council of State, and the contested decision came from the same authority under the same delegation, the judgment supplies an additional ground of annulment.
An annulment does not release the assets. The administration has to decide again, through a validly empowered authority, and in accordance with the grounds of the judgment. The substance remains decisive.
Refusals that were not challenged in time
Where a refusal was notified and the time limit for an application to the Council of State has expired, the position is different. The judgment does not annul those decisions and does not reopen the time limit.
What remains possible turns on the date and terms of notification, the authority that took the decision, and whether an application to the Council of State is still available.
Where the original refusal has become final, a fresh application to the administration is a separate route. It cannot consist of a repetition of the earlier request, since a purely confirmatory decision opens no new right of appeal.
Such an application rests on the applicant’s current situation, on the sanctions framework as it now stands, and on new factual or documentary evidence, including any development in the custody chain. Whether the route is open at all depends on the derogation relied on and on the circumstances of the case.
Why the derogations rarely reach assets held through Euroclear
Two points are not in dispute. Only the persons and entities listed in Annex I to Regulation (EU) No 269/2014 are directly targeted. Where a listed person owns or controls a non-listed entity, control can be presumed to extend to that entity’s assets, and the Commission accepts that the presumption is rebuttable on a case-by-case basis by the entity concerned.
The Commission also states, in its frequently asked questions on asset freezes in the version of 6 May 2026, that the fact of applying for an authorisation does not amount to an acknowledgment that the applicant is owned or controlled by a designated person.
The derogations themselves are narrow, and assets held through a central securities depository are in a particular position.
Article 6b(5h) of Regulation (EU) No 269/2014 allows a national competent authority to authorise the release of funds that were frozen because a listed entity, or an entity owned or controlled by a listed entity, acted as intermediary bank during a transfer. Article 6b(5i) does the same where a payment was frozen because the transfer was initiated through or from such an entity. Both require the transfer to be between persons that are not listed in Annex I and not to breach Article 2(2) or Article 9.
Both paragraphs close with the same exclusion. Neither applies in relation to frozen funds or economic resources held by central securities depositories within the meaning of Regulation (EU) No 909/2014.
For assets held through a central securities depository, that exclusion removes the two derogations which come closest to the position of an investor caught behind a designated intermediary. Article 6b(5j) does address cash balances frozen by a central securities depository, and refers expressly to the National Settlement Depository, but it is drafted for the depository’s own obligations towards its participants rather than for the investor.
Nothing in the amendments adopted since, including Regulation (EU) 2026/1844, alters that position.
What remains for an applicant is Article 2 itself, and the general derogations in Articles 4, 5, 5a to 5c and 6, each on its own conditions.
An application therefore has to identify the derogation relied on, the ownership and custody chain, and the reasons why the requested transaction would not make funds or economic resources available, directly or indirectly, to a designated person or entity.
No general release of Russian assets
The Council of State has not annulled any EU sanctions regulation. It has not ordered Euroclear to release Russian assets. Banks, central securities depositories and other operators remain bound by directly applicable EU freezing obligations.
What the judgment concerns is the Belgian administrative mechanism used to decide requests for derogation and release. It reopens the question of who decides, without widening what can be decided.
The questions in each file are therefore who took the refusal, on what authority, whether a challenge is still pending or still available, and which derogation, if any, the assets can be brought within.
Gilles LAGUESSE
Avocat associé
The judgment had not yet been published on the Council of State’s website at the time of writing. This article is general information on a published judgment and is not advice on any particular file.
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