EU Blocking Statute and the Anti-Coercion Instrument

1 The history of the European Union (EU) Blocking Statute (also known as the EU Blocking Regulation) (Regulation 2271/96 or ‘Regulation’), goes back to the mid-1990s when the EU had to respond to extraterritorial United States (US) sanctions which targeted Cuba, Iran, and Libya. Those US economic sanctions rendered EU natural or legal persons trading with sanctioned entities liable in the US, thereby having their assets frozen and commercial relationships interrupted (Arendt 258). Therefore, already in the 1990s, EU institutions and Member States were looking for...