Given the persistence and escalation of the Ukrainian conflict, the EU has imposed a new set of restrictive measures against Russia
with the EU Regulations no. 2022/427 and 2022/428, published on March 15th, 2022.
While the first Regulation amends the previous Regulation no 269/2014, by extending the list of people, entities and organizations targeted by the freezing measures concerning funds and economic resources, the second one significantly modifies the previous EU Regulation no 833/2014, by drastically reducing the trade exchanges of a wide range of goods and services with the Russian Federation.
These last measures impose new sanctions that significantly affect the import from and export towards Russia, not solely with respect to specific sectors, as for iron and steel, dual-use goods and technology, investments in the energy industry and credit rating services, but also with respect to ordinary trade exchanges.
More specifically, among others, a new article 3 nonies has been introduced, which forbids the sale, supply, transfer or export, directly or indirectly, towards Russia or for their use in Russia, a wide range of luxury goods exceeding a value of Euro 300,00 per item.
The following product categories are subjected to the above-mentioned value limitation:
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- Horses;
- Caviar and caviar substitutes;
- Truffles and preparations thereof;
- Wines, beers, spirits and spirituous beverages;
- Cigars and cigarillos;
- Perfumes, toilet waters and cosmetics, including beauty and make-up products;
- Leather, saddlery and travel goods, handbags and similar articles;
- Coats, or other garments, clothing accessories and shoes;
- Carpets, rugs and tapestries;
- Pearls, precious and semi-precious stones, articles of pearls, jewellery, gold- or silversmith articles;
- Coins and banknotes, not being legal tender;
- Cutlery of precious metal or plated or clad with precious metal;
- Tableware of porcelain, china, stone- or earthenware or fine pottery;
- Items of lead crystal;
- Clocks and watches and their parts;
- Articles and equipment for sports, including skiing, golf, diving and water sports;
- Articles and equipment for billiard, automatic bowling, casino games and games operated by coins or banknotes.
A higher value limitation per item applies for certain other luxury goods, such as:
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- Electronic items for domestic use of a value exceeding EUR 750,00;
- Electrical/electronic or optical apparatus for recording and reproducing sound and images of a value exceeding EUR 1.000,00;
- Musical instruments of a value exceeding EUR 1.500,00;
- teleferics, chairlifts, ski-draglines, traction mechanisms for funiculars, motorbikes of a value exceeding EUR 5.000,00 each;
- Vehicles for the transport of persons on earth, air or sea of a value exceeding EUR 50.000,00 each.
In order to strengthen the imposed restrictive measures, article 12 has been updated and it expressly states that “It shall be prohibited to participate, knowingly and intentionally, in activities the object or effect of which is to circumvent prohibitions in this Regulation”.
On this point, we must recall that the infringement of the restrictive measures provided by the EU Regulation no 2014/833 has criminal relevance in the Italian legal system, as per the Legislative Decree no 221/2017, which it is deemed to be applicable also to the new European restrictions implemented in 2022.
Viorica Efros
Junior Partner
Head of the East European Desk
E: viorica.efros@l2bpartners.com
