A company learns that it has been designated simultaneously under two separate sanctions regimes – one administered by the EU Council and one by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, known as SECO. Asset freezes activate on both sides. The same assets, the same underlying facts, but two entirely different legal systems govern the challenge. Which route moves faster? Where does the standard of review give the designated party the stronger foothold? And what happens when one challenge succeeds and the other does not?
Judicial review of a designation under EU law proceeds before the EU General Court under an annulment action, with the Court applying a standard of full review on the facts and law. Under the applicable Swiss regime, challenges route through the Federal Administrative Court with SECO as the primary administrative actor; the procedural and evidentiary rules differ materially. As of February 2026, the EU pathway offers a published body of General Court precedent that shapes both strategy and timelines, while the Swiss route is less litigated and, in our experience, less predictable at the evidentiary stage.
This analysis maps the two regimes side by side: governing authority, standing, standard of review, evidence, timelines, and the practical consequences of dual designation. It closes with the risk flags that counsel watches most closely and the questions a cross-border business should ask before filing anything.
Who administers each regime, and what is the legal basis for a designation?
Under EU law, designations are adopted by the Council of the European Union acting under the relevant thematic sanctions Council Regulation and the corresponding Council Decision. The Council holds the political decision-making role; the designation itself is a legal act of the Union, binding across all Member States.
SECO, by contrast, sits within the Swiss Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. It administers Swiss autonomous sanctions, including measures that broadly mirror EU listings, under the applicable Swiss ordinances. Switzerland is not an EU Member State, and its regime operates under domestic administrative law rather than EU institutional law. The Federal Administrative Court hears challenges to SECO decisions.
This distinction in legal basis carries direct consequences. EU designations are acts of a supranational body; they can be annulled by the EU General Court, and that annulment has Union-wide effect. A Swiss designation rests on a Federal Council ordinance and a SECO administrative decision; annulment or suspension by the Federal Administrative Court operates within the Swiss constitutional order only. A company designated under both regimes must litigate in two distinct systems simultaneously, often with different deadlines and different evidentiary demands.
In our cross-border practice, clients frequently underestimate the resource commitment of running parallel proceedings. The EU and Swiss timelines rarely align, which means counsel must manage two evidence packages, two sets of procedural rules, and two authorities that may take divergent views of the same underlying facts.
What standard of review does each court apply?
The EU General Court applies a standard of full legality review to designation annulment actions. It examines whether the Council had a sufficient factual basis for the listing, whether the stated reasons were adequate, and whether fundamental rights – in particular the right to property and the right to effective judicial protection under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights – were respected.
The Court does not merely ask whether the Council acted within a broad discretion. It assesses the evidence that was before the Council at the time of designation. Where the factual basis is disputed, the burden follows a particular sequence: the Council must produce the information or evidence supporting the listing, after which the designated party may contest it. Experience before the EU General Court indicates that this burden-shifting mechanism is where many annulment actions turn, not at the level of legal principle.
The Federal Administrative Court in Switzerland applies a standard of review that encompasses legality, expediency, and proportionality – a broad administrative law review in form, but in practice the Court typically shows a degree of deference to SECO's assessment of foreign-policy-adjacent measures. The Swiss Court is empowered to substitute its own assessment, but designated parties should not assume that the breadth of the review standard translates automatically into a more interventionist approach. The body of decided cases is smaller, which makes outcome prediction harder.
What does this mean operationally? Before the EU General Court, the designated party has a relatively well-mapped evidentiary battlefield with a growing body of precedent on what suffices to establish or defeat the factual basis. Before the Federal Administrative Court, the strategy is less settled. Both courts apply proportionality, but the EU Court's proportionality analysis is framed through the Charter; the Swiss court applies the proportionality principle of Swiss administrative law. They sound similar; they are not the same test in practice.
How does the standing and admissibility analysis compare?
Standing before the EU General Court for a designated natural or legal person is, in principle, straightforward: a directly and individually concerned person whose assets are frozen has standing to bring an annulment action. The admissibility question becomes more complex for third parties – for example, an entity whose business is affected by a counterparty's designation, or a shareholder in a listed company. The Court has addressed this repeatedly, and the line is not always obvious, particularly for entities that are themselves caught through the ownership and control analysis rather than by a direct listing.
In Switzerland, standing before the Federal Administrative Court requires that the applicant be affected by the challenged decision, have a legal interest in its annulment, and have exhausted any prior administrative remedy. Where SECO has adopted a listing by ordinance rather than by individual administrative act, the procedural route for challenge may need to route through the Federal Council before the Federal Administrative Court can be reached. This distinction between challenging an ordinance and challenging an individual administrative decision is one of the most technically demanding aspects of the Swiss route.
Time limits matter equally. Before the EU General Court, the limitation period for an annulment action is set by the Treaty provisions; it runs from the date of publication or notification. Missing it is fatal. Before the Swiss courts, the appeal deadline under domestic administrative procedure law similarly runs from notification. In our experience, the first thing a client asks when they receive notice of a designation is how much time they have. The honest answer is: not much, and in both regimes the window is shorter than most boards expect.
How does the evidence and reasoning requirement differ between the EU and Switzerland?
The EU regime imposes a formal duty on the Council to state reasons for a designation. That statement of reasons must be specific and concrete enough to allow the designated party to understand the basis for the listing and to challenge it effectively. General, formulaic reasoning has been set aside by the EU General Court in multiple decisions. This requirement is enforceable. A poorly reasoned designation is a procedurally vulnerable one.
In the Swiss system, SECO must also provide the legal and factual basis for its measures, but the form and depth of that statement is governed by Swiss administrative procedure requirements. Where Switzerland is mirroring an EU listing – which is common for autonomous measures that track EU decisions – the underlying reasoning may itself be sparse, relying on the EU measure as a reference point. A designated party seeking to challenge the Swiss measure may find that the factual record underlying the Swiss listing is thin, precisely because SECO has relied on a third jurisdiction's designation rather than conducting an independent analysis.
This creates an asymmetry that practitioners must exploit carefully. A successful annulment before the EU General Court does not automatically undo the Swiss designation, but it substantially undermines the factual record that SECO relied upon. Conversely, if the EU proceeding is pending and a Swiss challenge can be moved first, a successful Swiss outcome may create procedural pressure on the EU side. The sequencing of parallel proceedings is a strategic question that depends heavily on the specific facts, the available evidence, and the nature of the listing grounds.
The EU General Court's approach to confidential evidence is also worth noting. Where intelligence or security-sensitive material is submitted by the Council in closed proceedings, the Court has developed procedures to protect both confidentiality and the designated party's procedural rights. The Swiss Federal Administrative Court has analogous tools, but the case law is less developed. In our practice, we regard evidence confidentiality as one of the more difficult structural problems in challenging designations in both systems.
What are the interim measures and suspension options under each regime?
An annulment action before the EU General Court does not suspend the designation automatically. The designated party must apply separately for interim measures – suspension of the contested act pending the outcome of the main proceedings. The Court applies a test requiring urgency and a prima facie case, and it weighs the balance of interests. Interim suspension of a sanctions designation is granted rarely. The procedural bar is high.
In Switzerland, the Federal Administrative Court may grant suspensive effect to an appeal. By default, an appeal may not suspend the measure unless the Court decides otherwise. The applicant must make an application and meet the relevant standard. As with the EU, the granting of interim suspension of a sanctions-related measure is the exception rather than the rule.
For a business facing simultaneous designations, the practical implication is that the asset freeze will remain in place during the proceedings in both jurisdictions unless interim relief is obtained in one or both. That means the business must be able to fund the challenge from assets that are not themselves frozen – or through a licensing route for legal costs, which adds a further layer of complexity. Businesses that wait until the designation lands before planning their response are already behind.
Where do the regimes diverge on enforcement of a successful challenge?
If the EU General Court annuls a designation, the Council must take the measures necessary to comply with the judgment. The Council may relist the individual on a corrected basis, but it must do so on a fresh and legally sufficient factual record. Relisting on identical grounds after annulment would be vulnerable to a further challenge. In practice, the Council must either produce new or supplemented evidence or accept the delisting.
In Switzerland, if the Federal Administrative Court sets aside a SECO designation or the relevant ordinance provision, SECO and the Federal Council are bound to act in conformity with the judgment within the domestic constitutional order. Where the designation was a mirror of an EU listing that has subsequently been annulled by the EU General Court, the Swiss authority will typically reassess whether the domestic measure can be maintained independently. The answer depends on whether there is an independent Swiss factual record or whether the measure relied entirely on the foreign listing.
The divergence here is practically important. A designated party that succeeds before the EU General Court may find that the Swiss designation is maintained on the basis of independent Swiss grounds, or revised, or withdrawn. Nothing is automatic. In our experience, a coordinated post-judgment strategy across both jurisdictions is as important as winning the first proceeding.
Risk flags: what counsel watches most closely in a dual-designation matter
Several risk factors recur across dual EU and Swiss designation matters. They are worth naming plainly.
The designation grounds differ across the two regimes. Even where EU and Swiss measures are described as mirroring each other, the legal formulation of the grounds, the criteria for designation, and the evidence relied upon can differ. Assume divergence until you have confirmed alignment by examining both records.
Procedural deadlines are short in both systems. Missing a filing deadline in either jurisdiction is typically fatal to that route. If a company is designated on a Friday and the board does not discuss it until the following week, a material portion of the available response window may already be consumed. Have an incident response protocol in place before a designation arrives.
The ownership and control analysis may produce different results under each regime. The EU applies an ownership and control test (the test for whether a non-listed entity is caught through a listed person's ownership or control) that is set out in EU guidance and has been addressed by the EU General Court. SECO applies Swiss law concepts. An entity that is not itself listed but is caught through ownership under one regime may not be caught under the other. That distinction affects standing to challenge, the scope of the freeze, and the design of any licence application for legal costs.
Parallel proceedings create resource and coordination demands that firms consistently underestimate. Legal fees in both jurisdictions, the cost of evidence gathering, and management time all begin to accrue from day one. A detailed budget and timeline, including the expected duration of main proceedings in both systems, should be prepared within the first week.
Finally: a common myth is that a successful EU General Court annulment automatically ends the matter globally. It does not. Third-country designations, including Swiss designations that were adopted before the EU annulment, remain in force until each relevant authority takes action. The firm's position is that a post-annulment sweep of all active designations across every jurisdiction is non-negotiable before a client considers the matter resolved.
Related practices
- Delisting evidence packages – Australia – building the factual record for an Australian autonomous-sanctions delisting application
- EU vs SECO designation challenges: further analysis – extended regime comparison covering procedural and evidentiary differences
- OFAC vs Canada: judicial review of a designation compared – US and Canadian regime comparison for dual-designated persons