On 4 November 2026, the General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg largely rejected the lawsuit filed by the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RMRS). Sanctions prohibiting ships certified in Russia from entering EU ports and locks remain in force.
The court heard case T-535/24. The RMRS sought to annul several restrictive measures imposed by the EU Council after the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. These included a ban on investments and transactions with the register, as well as a prohibition on access for vessels certified by it to European ports and locks.
The court declared the challenge to the port-access ban inadmissible. In the judges’ view, the measure directly affects the vessels themselves rather than the organisation, so the register does not have standing to contest it in this way.
At the same time, the court partially upheld the claim. It annulled the decision withdrawing the RMRS’s status as an EU-recognised organisation for ship inspection and certification. The judges considered a full withdrawal of recognition disproportionate: the same objective could have been achieved by a less severe measure — suspension of recognition. With a full withdrawal, even if sanctions were later lifted, the organisation would have had to undergo a new recognition procedure with no guaranteed positive outcome.
The RMRS is a state-owned body headquartered in St Petersburg. According to the court, it has classified 4,207 vessels, of which 3,772 sail under the Russian flag. These include icebreakers, oil tankers, cargo ships and fishing vessels.
The ban on certified vessels entering European ports and locks has been in place since 2023. The ruling comes against the backdrop of ongoing suspicions of Russian vessels’ involvement in damaging undersea cables in the Baltic Sea and near the Svalbard archipelago.
In practice, the ban on ships entering European ports remains in force. The annulment of the recognition withdrawal does not automatically grant the right to resume certification activities in the EU. The judgment may be appealed to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
