Australian authorities ‘made errors’ in sanctioning Russian oligarch Alexander Abramov, lawyer claims

Abramov, who has change into head of Russia’s largest metal producer Evraz, is suing Penny Wong in Federal Court docket following the previous authorities’s April sanctions towards 67 Russian elites and oligarchs over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

He claimed the sanctions imposed by former overseas minister Marise Payne had severely broken credibility and had filed a request to have them revoked earlier this yr.

Wong later revoked them, however then instantly reimposed the identical sanctions on Abramov.

The businessman’s lawyer Ron Merkel KC advised the Federal Court docket on Tuesday.

“The aim of sanctions is to impose them on those that have the power to affect the federal government…within the actions of the federal government and (their) reference to that authorities is the means,” he mentioned. for that impact to happen.

Nonetheless, the federal government’s choice to consider that Abramov is the chairman of Evraz is wrong, Merkel mentioned. The businessman resigned in March.

The choice can be based mostly on the truth that he is the founding father of the corporate, however that is additionally incorrect actually, he mentioned.

Abramov truly based a “car” earlier than that, a business firm within the Nineties – not Evraz as it’s in the present day, Merkel argues.

He mentioned: “Evraz was based in 2011 on the London Inventory Change.

The businessman’s attorneys additionally argue that Abramov was unfairly procedural when the federal government determined to sanction him.