King's move: Belgium retroactively rewrote laws to the detriment of Russians
The King of Belgium retroactively changed the law on the application of EU sanctions in order to correct mistakes that allowed the Russians to justify the right to unlock assets, Izvestia found out. Because of this, the consideration of lawsuits filed by our investors against the Belgian Ministry of Finance will be further complicated and delayed. However, this situation will also give lawyers a new reason and reason to put pressure on the Belgian side. How Russians can withdraw their assets from the EU is in the Izvestia article.
What has the new law changed?
After the sanctions were announced in 2022, more than 5 million Russian private investors lost access to foreign stocks and bonds, according to the Central Bank. Their securities were blocked, among other things, due to restrictions against the National Settlement Depository (NSD): our investors bought foreign securities through Russian brokers, and then they were accounted for in the international depository system. After the restrictions were introduced, this chain stopped working.
In each EU country, authorized bodies are responsible for compliance with sanctions. In Belgium, the decision to freeze Russian assets was made by the Ministry of Finance. Russian investors actively filed lawsuits against the agency, but they began to receive massive refusals to unfreeze funds. After that, they tried to appeal against these refusals, Izvestia wrote earlier.
Since 2023, the treasury of the country, subordinate to the Ministry of Finance, has been making decisions on unblocking frozen assets of Russians, and it has refused to unlock funds for investors.
The problem is that all these years the Belgian law has not provided a sufficient basis for such a scheme. In practice, everything happened as follows: first, by royal decree, the Treasury was appointed the body responsible for the application of financial sanctions, and then the right to make specific decisions was transferred to the General Administrator of the Treasury. But it was accepted at the level of internal decrees, not the law. Due to this, the Treasury did not formally have a legitimate right to refuse Russians to unlock their assets.
This is exactly what Russian investors began to refer to, challenging the refusals to unfreeze funds. If it turns out that the decision was made by an authority or an official who did not have the legal authority to do so, the court can cancel such a refusal, even without examining whether the Ministry of Finance correctly applied the sanctions rules to a particular investor, explained the founder of the international legal service. Razmorozka.com Alexey Bogdanov.
In one case, the Belgian Council of State instructed its auditor to check separately whether the Treasury had legally obtained the right to make such decisions. According to the information provided by the parties to the process, the auditor concluded that there was indeed a problem with the powers, the expert noted.
After that, the Belgian authorities decided to rectify the situation retroactively. On July 15, 2026, the parliament adopted the amendments, and on July 28 they were published. Since September 1, the law explicitly gives the King the authority to appoint the Treasury or another body as the competent authority for EU sanctions.
By a separate provision, Parliament retroactively confirmed the validity of a three-year-old royal decree, which appointed the Treasury as the competent authority from December 18, 2023. It turns out that Belgium first discovered a gap in the legal basis of the treasury's powers, and then changed the law so that this gap was considered eliminated from the moment when the government agency received the powers, explained financial lawyer and qualified investor Olga Plekhanova.
For the complaints that have already been filed, this means that Belgium will now be able to object, even if the old law really lacked grounds for the treasury's work. After all, the parliament subsequently corrected this flaw retroactively. Therefore, the investors' previous argument about illegality is getting weaker, the lawyer stressed. This may further delay and complicate the consideration of claims.
However, at the same time, a new question arises: does Belgium have the right to change the law after the actions of the State have already become the subject of judicial proceedings? In Belgian practice, such cases require particularly serious justification, since the retroactive force of the law can affect the outcome of an ongoing process, the expert concluded.
What does this mean for Russian investors
For the owners of frozen assets, the change in the law means, first of all, the need to focus on the content of the decisions of the Belgian Ministry of Finance. The new act cannot retroactively make the refusal legitimate if the circumstances of a particular investor have not been studied. For example, the documents were ignored, or the procedure was violated, Alexey Bogdanov emphasized.
In such cases, we are talking about Russians who themselves are not under sanctions, but cannot access their securities. After the introduction of measures against NSD, the securities of its clients, which themselves did not fall under the restrictions, were frozen with the assets of the organization.
According to lawyers, the Belgian Ministry of Finance in some cases requires such investors to prove the termination of relations with NSD, although the client may never have had a direct contractual relationship with him, Olga Plekhanova explained.
At the same time, Russian investors have another important argument. One of the reasons for the refusal to unfreeze was that it was impossible to return a person's own shares from a frozen account, since such a transfer in itself becomes an operation with blocked assets. However, in June, the EU Court of Justice ruled that the return of the client's securities could be considered an authorized operation. This strengthens the position of investors, Olga Plekhanova believes.
Nevertheless, it is not worth waiting for a quick unblocking of assets. The first decisions on complaints already filed may appear in 2027. If the decision of other European courts is required for their consideration, some cases may be delayed until the end of 2027 or even until 2028, Alexey Bogdanov noted.
How can Russians withdraw their assets
The legal battle remains almost the only legal way for investors, since there is currently no other clear option to force the return of assets. Additional appeals and lawsuits can create pressure for the Belgian authorities, but it is impossible to predict a specific result, said Artem Kasumyan, senior associate at the Delcredere Bar Association.
As a result, the asset unblocking procedure remains expensive and does not guarantee a refund. At the beginning of the year, the Luxembourg Times published the story of a Russian citizen living in Luxembourg. Alexey B. (name changed), like other Russians, faced the freezing of funds in Euroclear accounts. Since 2022, he has spent more than 70,000 euros on lawyers and legal fees, but has not achieved a return on his assets.
However, successful cases are also known. In August 2023, the Russian managed to return $2 million frozen in Euroclear. The funds were withdrawn just after receiving a license from the Belgian Treasury.
For investors, the situation does not yet look like a drastic change in the entire practice, according to Dmitry Lesnov, Deputy General Director for brokerage business at Finama. Changing Belgian law will only complicate the work of lawyers. If earlier they had a simple and almost guaranteed reason to cancel the decision on blocking (lack of authority), now they will have to prove that the very application of sanctions to a particular person was illegal.
In 2024, the Belgian Treasury reviewed 446 applications and allowed unblocking in 186 cases, Olga Plekhanova noted. However, not all such decisions meant that the person received the money immediately: after its issuance, a transfer must be made through a broker and Euroclear. Additional difficulties arise when working with European banks, which often block the accounts of Russians. That is why there are few stories about the successful withdrawal of blocked assets right now.
Belgium's attempt to correct an old flaw in the law is important not only for specific court cases, but also for the perception of the European legal system, Olga Plekhanova explained.
It cannot be proved that the law was specifically passed to prevent Russians from winning in the courts. But now investors have another question for the Belgian authorities: is it possible to change the rules after the dispute has started, Alexey Bogdanov noted.
At the same time, the opportunity to defend their rights through the European courts has not disappeared. Investors can still challenge the decisions of the Belgian Ministry of Finance, and the courts can check whether the authorities acted lawfully in each case, the experts stressed.
The main problem is that such protection can take years, Olga Plekhanova noted. For a person who is not under sanctions himself, but cannot receive his money or securities, this means a lengthy legal battle instead of simple access to his own property.
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