Germany's Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has overturned a decision that prevented legal documents from being served on the Council of the European Union in a lawsuit brought by Alisher Usmanov. The ruling in case IV AR(VZ) 2/25 was issued on October 21 and made public later.
The dispute concerned the procedural authority of the president of a court in Hamburg who had previously declined to arrange service of the documents. The BGH overturned that refusal and a related ruling by a higher regional court. According to the published account of its decision, the refusal was found unlawful.
Usmanov's representatives said the earlier refusal had restricted their client's right to judicial protection.
The BGH considered only the procedure for serving court documents. It did not assess the legality of EU sanctions against Usmanov.