Iranian companies excluded from UK Treasury's sanctions list
By Sara Rajabova
Following the Vienna nuclear deal, several Iranian companies that were under the international ban have been lifted from the list of sanctioned entities.
The United Kingdom removed two Iranian companies operating in the oil, gas, and petrochemical sectors from its list of entities subject to asset freezes, Press TV reported.
The UK Treasury said on July 30 that it had taken Petropars Aria Kish Operation and Management and Petropars Resources Engineering Kish off its sanctions list.
The decision came after the two companies successfully applied to have their sanctions listings annulled before the General Court of the EU in May.
The companies had argued that the council had made an error of assessment in deciding that they had provided support to the Iranian government to avoid sanctions.
The General Court of the EU, however, in its May ruling dismissed the applications by Petropars Iran Co. (PPI) and Petropars Oilfields Services Co. (POSCO) to annul the sanctions listings
The tribunal argued that the two companies were entirely owned by Petropars Ltd (PPL), which had allegedly helped the Iranian government circumvent sanctions.
Petropars has been developing phases 12 and 19 of South Pars gas field.
Petropars Ltd had a minority stake in POMC and PRE where other shareholders had no interest in assisting the government, the General Court of the EU had said in its argument.
“Therefore the Court annulled the sanctions listing of POMC and PRE but not PPI or POSCO,” it added.
Hundreds of Iranian individuals and organizations came under sanctions by the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States, which included financial penalties.
This punishment, meted out in stages since 2005, has been the world’s main response to Iran’s efforts to develop long-range missiles and the ability to arm them with nuclear warheads. Most of the Iranian entities punished are linked to these efforts.
The punishment has largely meant freezing the assets of the entities and prohibiting virtually all transactions with them.
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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on
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