Russia sues EU over frozen assets at bloc’s court in Luxembourg

Russia’s central bank has filed a lawsuit at the General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg challenging a regulation that indefinitely freezes its sovereign assets held in the bloc.

1. The Bank of Russia said it submitted its claim on 27 February, targeting a European Council regulation adopted on 12 December 2025.
2. The regulation, part of the EU’s broader sanctions regime against Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, extended the immobilisation of Russian sovereign assets held by European financial institutions indefinitely, replacing an earlier arrangement that required unanimous renewal every 6 months.
3. In a statement on Tuesday, Russia’s central bank
1. Said the regulation prohibits any transfer of its assets for an indefinite period and blocks any judicial recourse to challenge that decision, including the enforcement of court rulings or arbitration awards.
2. Argued this violates the right to access justice, the inviolability of property, and the principle of sovereign immunity under both international and EU law.
4. The assets — roughly €210 billion held primarily at Belgium’s Euroclear and Luxembourg’s Clearstream — have been immobilised since shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
5. The EU has kept them frozen and directed windfall profits generated on the assets to Ukraine for reconstruction. Euroclear has said it has contributed around €5 billion to that effort.

Also

1. The Bank of Russia is also separately pursuing Euroclear in a Moscow arbitration court, seeking approximately $232 billion to cover the estimated value of frozen assets and compensation for lost returns.
2. Legal experts have said that if Russia were to prevail, it could seek to enforce such a judgment against Euroclear assets in third countries, including China, the UAE, and Kazakhstan.
3. Euroclear has said it is contending with more than 100 legal claims in Russia linked to the sanctions regime.
4. The freeze has also affected non-sanctioned private investors. Before 2022, Russian retail investors could buy foreign securities through domestic brokers, whose underlying custody arrangements ran through Russia’s National Settlement Depository (NSD) and on to Euroclear and Clearstream.
5. When Euroclear and Clearstream severed ties with the NSD following the invasion, assets held through that chain were frozen regardless of the individual investor’s sanctions status. The EU’s sixth sanctions package, adopted in June 2022, formally prohibited European entities from cooperating with the NSD.

Source

https://www.luxtimes.lu/businessandfinance/russia-challenges-eu-asset-freeze-in-luxembourg-court/138753739.html