The EU has removed two Iranian oil companies from its sanctions list, the first such action since Iran reached a nuclear agreement with world powers earlier this month, a notice from the UK’s Finance Ministry has revealed
Petropars Operation and Management and Petropars Resources Engineering had been pressing for their removal from a list of sanctioned companies for months on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to include them.
The companies, which are the part of a group involved in extracting natural gas from Iran’s South Pars field, appealed to the EU court in May this year to allow their removal from the list.
The court removed the companies after receiving no objection from the European Council. However, the council could not be reached for comment yet, Reuters reported.
The court at the same time declined to remove two other companies — Petropars Iran Co and Petropars Oilfields Services Company — from the list because of the larger stakes those entities have in parent group NIOC.
While the decision to remove the two groups was not related to the recent nuclear agreement, a lawyer for the two said that she was hopeful the warming relations between Iran and the west would ensure her clients stay off the list of sanctioned companies.
“Because this is the first annulment that happened after the Iran agreement, we are hoping that the council has not appealed in good faith,” said Pavani Reddy, managing partner of law firm Zaiwalla and Co Solicitors, adding that applying new charges against them would be ‘a waste of time and resources’.
European courts in the past had nullified sanctions against National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), Iran’s biggest tanker firm, only to put it back on the list later, the news agency added.
