An EU Court ordered damages to an Iranian businessman, deeming the placement of his electrical equipment purveyor on the sanctions list an “error.”
The long-running case of Fulmen v Council ended with the European Union ordering to pay €71,000 in damages to Iranian businessman Fereydoun Mahmoudian. His company Fulmen, which supplies electrical equipment, was placed on the EU’s restrictive sanctions list in 2010 on suspicion of links to Iran’s nuclear programme. The General Court later found that the Council had failed to prove those allegations and annulled the listing, but the names remained on the list for more than three years.
In 2019, the General Court ruled that annulment alone was not enough to repair the harm. It awarded Mahmoudian €71,000 for the non-material damage he suffered, citing serious injury to his reputation and disruptions to daily life. The court dismissed his claims for financial loss, finding them either unproven or inadmissible.
The Council appealed, arguing that the General Court had erred in awarding compensation. But in November 2021, the Court of Justice dismissed the appeal and confirmed the damages award. It upheld the finding of a “sufficiently serious breach” of EU law, noting that the Council’s actions had caused real and certain harm.
The case has become a landmark in EU sanctions law, underlining that annulment is not always enough to make good the damage caused by wrongful listings. It confirms that individuals and companies targeted without evidence may claim compensation for reputational and personal harm, setting an important precedent for future challenges to restrictive measures.