MOSCOW. May 25 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian missile systems manufacturer Almaz-Antey has filed an appeal against the sanctions imposed on it by the Council of the European Union in July and September 2014, a company spokesman told Interfax-AVN on Friday.
"German law firm Taylor Wessing has been hired to help prepare the appeal against the EU sanctions. It [Taylor Wessing] is providing legal assistance to the [Russian] concern and will also take part in all court and out-of-court proceedings and negotiations representing the interests of the concern," the spokesman said.
"As an administrative appeal against the sanctions, Concern has filed an application to the Secretariat General of the Council of the European Union (Brussels, Belgium), asking it to review the assessment of the actual circumstances and to provide evidence and other information based on which the EU Council made the decisions to include Concern in the sanctions lists," the spokesperson said
"We have filed the administrative appeal against both the sanctions freezing Concern's assets (introduced by the EU Council resolution N2014/508/CFSP and the Council Regulation N826/2014 of July 30, 2014) and the sanctions banning dual-purpose products (introduced by the EU Council Resolution N2014/659/CFSP and the Council Regulation N960/2014 of September 8, 2014)," the company spokesperson said.
"We then filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Justice (Luxembourg), asking to annul the EU Council Resolution N2015/432/CFSP of March 13, 2015, and the EU Council's Executive Regulation N2015/427 of March 13, 2015, which extends the asset-freezing sanctions against Concern," the company spokesperson said.
"The inclusion of Concern in the sanctions lists is unjustified and violates the fundamental rights granted by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights," says Yan Novikov, Concern's General Director. He stressed that Concern has not supplied weapons ever since it was founded.
"The EU Council has failed to provide any other evidence of our involvement in destabilizing the situation in Ukraine," Novikov added.
The company's legal directorate said the EU Council's decision to include Concern in the sanctions lists is a breach of the EU principles and regulations, given the absence of any evidence of Concern being involved Ukrainian destabilization and of a proper justification, the spokesperson said.
Concern Almaz-Antey was set up in 2002, bringing together 46 companies at the time: plants, scientific production associations, design bureaus and research institutes, all of which were involved in designing and manufacturing short-, medium- and long-range surface-to-air missile systems and main types of radar surveillance devices and automatic control systems.
On February 5, 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree re-organizing Air Defense Concern Almaz-Antey into Aerospace Defense Concern Almaz-Antey. The same decree approved an increase in the company's authorized capital.
Today, Concern consists of over 60 enterprises in 17 Russian regions.