Court of Justice 19 March 2026, C-842/24 (Opinion of Advocate General Szpunar delivered on 19 March 2026.)

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In this Opinion delivered on 19 March 2026 in Case C-842/24, Advocate General Szpunar addresses three questions referred by the French Court of Cassation (Cour de cassation) concerning the interpretation of Article 2(2) of Regulation (EU) No 1352/2014, which prohibits making funds available, directly or indirectly, to persons designated under EU restrictive measures relating to Yemen. The Advocate General opines that the prohibition may extend to payments made to a non-designated public entity over which designated persons exercise a competing influence alongside a non-designated entity, provided the funds may be passed on to, or disposed of by, those designated persons; that a reasonable risk of such benefit is sufficient to trigger the prohibition, without requiring the higher standard of proof applicable to Council listing decisions; and that, once all available evidence tends to indicate such a reasonable risk, the burden shifts to the recipient entity to establish to the requisite legal standard that no such risk exists, rather than requiring the party alleging the infringement to bear the entire burden of proof.AI