Ismailov v Secretary of State: High Court upholds sanctions designation based on family association with Usmanov

The High Court has dismissed a statutory review claim brought by Sarvar Ismailov, the nephew of Uzbek-Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, against the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs. Mr Justice Saini, sitting in the Administrative Court, upheld the Government's decision to maintain asset-freeze and travel-ban sanctions imposed on Mr Ismailov in July 2022 under the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

The case turned significantly on the legality of the so-called "family designation criterion", introduced by the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 13) Regulations 2022, which broadened the definition of "associated with" an involved person to include specified immediate family members, including nieces and nephews. Mr Ismailov, born in Uzbekistan and resident in the UK since the age of 13, was designated on 26 July 2022 solely by reason of his familial relationship with Mr Usmanov, who had himself been designated in March 2022 for his involvement in sectors of strategic significance to the Government of Russia.

The claimant, represented by Hugo Keith KC and Rachel Scott KC of Gherson, advanced seven grounds of challenge. These ranged from macro-level attacks on the legislation to fact-specific complaints about the proportionality, rationality and alleged arbitrariness of the maintenance decision taken on 3 May 2024, as well as a challenge under the Public Sector Equality Duty ("PSED").

On the legality challenge, Saini J declined to treat the "principle of legality" as a freestanding ground of review, clarifying that in the public law sense it operates solely as a rule of statutory construction. In its ECHR dimension, he found the family designation criterion sufficiently clear and accessible to satisfy the requirement that interference with Convention rights be "in accordance with the law", applying the reasoning of Singh LJ in Khan v Secretary of State [2025] EWCA Civ 41. The regulations, he held, prescribe with adequate foreseeability the circumstances in which designation may occur: a person either is, or is not, an immediate family member of an involved person.

The ultra vires ground fared no better. The court rejected the argument that the Secretary of State had failed to satisfy the "appropriateness" condition in section 45(2)(a) of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. Saini J also dismissed what he described as the "EU constraint point" -- the novel submission that post-Brexit amendments to the Russia Regulations were required to mirror EU law on the meaning of "associated with". Parliament had enacted SAMLA to create an independent domestic sanctions regime, and no constraint preserving alignment with EU jurisprudence was to be implied.

On the Carltona ground, Saini J held that the decision to maintain Mr Ismailov's designation, taken by an FCDO official with ministerial endorsement, was lawfully made. He noted that 3,252 individuals are currently designated under the Russia Regulations across 37 UK sanctions regimes, rendering personal Secretary of State decision-making on each designation unworkable as a matter of constitutional practicality.

The proportionality and rationality challenges were assessed against the framework set out by the Supreme Court in Shvidler v Secretary of State [2025] UKSC 30. Saini J accepted that the designation rationally connected to the objective of pressuring Russia to cease its actions in Ukraine, noting the evidence of Mr Usmanov's historical asset transfers to family members and his longstanding ties to President Putin. The judgement of expert witness Dr Richard Connolly, who questioned the efficacy of individual sanctions, was acknowledged but held insufficient to displace the Secretary of State's superior institutional competence in matters of foreign policy.

The arbitrariness challenge, premised on comparisons with undesignated relatives of Roman Abramovich and Vladimir Yakunin, failed on the basis that the claimant had not demonstrated that proposed comparators were in materially identical positions. On the PSED, the court held that the duty had no extraterritorial application to Mr Ismailov, who had left the United Kingdom in March 2022 and remained abroad at the time of both the original designation and the maintenance decision, in accordance with the Supreme Court's ruling in Marouf v SSHD [2025] AC 130.

The application for statutory review was dismissed in its entirety.