Chairman of Iranian bank delisted by EU Council from Iran nuclear sanctions

The Council of the European Union in its decision notified on 3 August 2012 has reversed its decision to place punitive sanctions against Dr Ali Divandari, who is the former chairman of Bank Mellat, the largest private bank in Iran.

The EU Council originally decided to designate personally Dr Ali Divandari on 26 July 2010 by adopting Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 668/2010 and Council Decision 2010/413CFSP on the basis that such an action was a legitimate part of its regime of sanctions designed to stop Iranian nuclear proliferation.

The EU Council’s decision to reverse that step came shortly after a hearing before the General Court of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg on 23 May 2012. At that hearing, both Bank Mellat and Dr Divandari challenged the legality of the EU Council’s sanctions. Judgment of that challenge is still awaited.

Dr. Divandari challenged his listing as unlawful before the European Court of Justice on the grounds that the EU Council could not lawfully impose sanctions against private sector institutions in Iran or their employees. This, they argued, is because Iran’s private sector has no role to play, nor in reality any influence to exercise, in relation to acts of the Iranian State.

Member States of the EU, of which the UK is of course one, are all signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That Declaration was in fact signed by all UN Member States in 1948. This Declaration’s preamble requires the recognition by every State of the ‘inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family to be a foundation of freedom of justice and peace in the world’. Therefore, all EU states, and indeed the EU Council, had an obligation under international law not to injure innocent private citizens.

Dr Divandari’s case in the European Court of Justice was handled by Zaiwalla & Co Solicitors, London.