IslamicFinance.de

The European Court of Justice ruled on Thursday that the assets of Iran's Bank Mellat should not have been frozen from 2010, dismissing an appeal brought by the European Council. The Council, the grouping of the EU's 28 member states, froze the funds of a number of Iranian financial entities from 2010 to combat Iranian activities that could have led to it developing nuclear weapons. In Bank Mellat's case, the Council said that it engaged in conduct which supported and facilitated Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. The court ruled that the reasoning set out did not enable Bank Mellat to establish which banking services it provided to which entities, particularly as the persons whose accounts it managed were not identified.