Legal services and the EU’s Russia sanctions: some remarks from the Dutch perspective

The various sanctions packages introduced by the EU following the Russian invasion in Ukraine in February 2022 were unprecedented on multiple levels. Although sanctions have been part and parcel of both EU and Dutch law for decades, they have never had an impact comparable to the ‘Russia sanctions’. On the one hand, this was the result of the unprecedented scope of the various sanctions with certain measures being introduced which had until then been unthinkable. On the other hand, economic ties between Russia and the Netherlands were simply much deeper. As a result of both these factors, the Russia sanctions were also the first sanctions which affected the work of hundreds of Dutch lawyers rather than the odd lawyer with a client who wants to do business in Iran or North-Korea.