Consideration of the applicant's ground 4 - Failure to consider the revocation application
283 As the parties' submissions indicate, the authorities assist in answering the question whether it was open to the Minister to rely on a Departmental summary of the first statutory declaration. As one might expect, the authorities do not support the proposition that, in making a decision under statute, a Minister cannot in any circumstances rely on a summary prepared by Departmental officers but must personally read the entirety of a representation in order to fulfil an obligation to consider its contents. What is and is not acceptable in the particular case depends on the pertinent circumstances.
284 In Tickner v Chapman [1995] FCA 987; 55 FCR 316, a Full Court of this Court considered whether the appellant Minister had complied with s 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 (Cth), which required him to consider a report and any representations attached to the report. The Court held that the Minister's Department could assist the Minister in various ways, including by preparing summaries of a representation. The Full Court held the Minister was not necessarily required to read every representation himself, notwithstanding that he had an express statutory obligation to consider representations personally.
285 While Black CJ observed (at 464) that the Minister "must personally consider the representations and… not another document which is thought by someone else 'adequately to reflect' the representations", his Honour explained that this did not prevent the Minister relying on an effective Departmental summary. His Honour said:
This does not mean that the Minister is denied the assistance of a staff member in the process of considering the representations. A staff member might, for example, sort the representations into categories. He or she might put together all the representations that are in common form so that they can be considered together. In some cases, a summary of technical supporting material, such as legal and financial documents, might be provided and it would certainly be in order, in my view, for a competent staff member to assist the Minister by making sure that supporting technical documents were what they purported to be. I would not rule out the possibility of some representations being quite capable of effective summary, yet there would be other cases where nothing short of personal reading of a representation would constitute proper consideration of it.
286 Burchett J, at 476-477, reached a similar conclusion:
What is it to "consider" material such as a report or representations? In my opinion, the Minister is required to apply his own mind to the issues raised by these documents. To do that, he must obtain an understanding of the facts and circumstances set out in them, and of the contentions they urge based on those facts and circumstances. Although he cannot delegate his function and duty under s 10, he can be assisted in ascertaining the facts and contentions contained in the material. But he must ascertain them. He cannot simply rely on an assessment of their worth made by others: cf. Jeffs v. New Zealand Dairy Production and Marketing Board (1967) 1 AC 551 at 568-569. It is his task to evaluate them, a task he can only perform after he knows what they actually are. [] When Gibbs CJ in Minister for Aboriginal Affairs v Peko-Wallsend Limited [1986] HCA 40; (1986) 162 CLR 24 at 30-31 conceded that the Minister, in the circumstances of that case, was not obliged "to read for himself all the relevant papers", and that it "would not be unreasonable for him to rely on a summary of the relevant facts furnished by the officers of his Department", he also made it plain that the summary must "bring to his attention" all material facts "which he is bound to consider, and which cannot be dismissed as insignificant or insubstantial". That was in the context of legislation expressly empowering the Minister, as Mason J pointed out at 46, to delegate his powers and to refer matters to another authority.
287 Kiefel J, at 497, also reached a like conclusion:
I have earlier said that the Minister may seek the assistance of his staff. A "consideration" of the representations does not in my view require him to personally read each representation. But it may be as well for him to do so, for if his staff are to convey what is contained within them, they must do so in a way which provides a full account of what is in them. If they do not, the Minister will not have considered something he is obliged to, and in this respect the observations of Gibbs CJ in Peko-Wallsend at 30 as to what results are apposite. It may vitiate his decision
288 It is true that the Court in Tickner v Chapman cautioned that reliance on a summary may result in a failure to discharge the obligation to consider the representation personally, but the Court made it clear that there could be no hard and fast rule. Rather, as Black CJ explained, much would depend on the nature of the representations, and whether they were capable of being (and in fact had been) effectively summarised.
289 Carrascalao confirmed this approach. Carrascalao concerned an exercise of the Minister's power under s 501(3) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) to cancel a visa where the Minister reasonably suspected that the person did not pass the character test and was satisfied that visa cancellation was in the national interest. The respondent Minister argued that he was entitled to rely on the Department's summaries of the material relevant to the exercise of that power in respect of the applicant. The Court, constituted by three Justices, heard two applications for judicial review in the Court's original jurisdiction. As to the present issue, the Court stated (at [61]):
[I]t may be accepted that, despite the personal nature of the power, the Minister was entitled to obtain assistance from departmental officers and members of his private staff, including have them prepare summaries of information for review by him. There are, however, at least three qualifications to that proposition:
(a) any such summary which is materially deficient may give rise to an inference that the decision-making process was not properly conducted by the Minister ...;
(b) the use of a departmental summary may not be appropriate when what is sought to be summarised is a substantive argument (as opposed to an assertion of fact). Attempts to summarise material of this kind may be fraught, because the manner of the summary may cause some of the substantive force which the document may otherwise have had to be lost; and
(c) the Minister's entitlement to have regard to a summary or submission prepared by his Department must take into account any statement or indication in such a document which advises the Minister of the need for him or her personally to consider relevant information in a document which is summarised, as is the case here in respect of the Department's submissions concerning both Mr Taulahi and Mr Carrascalao.
290 Carrascalao expressly recognises the "entitlement" of a Minister to obtain assistance from his Department and his private staff, subject to some qualifications. Those qualifications, which were consonant with those expressed in Tickner v Chapman, acknowledge that there may be circumstances in which Ministerial reliance upon a summary results in a failure to consider personally that which is required to be considered.
291 At the hearing, the applicant relied heavily on Colvin J's statement at [73] in McQueen (first instance) that:
… where the Minister's task requires the consideration of representations made, the Minister must consider the representations personally and in most instances that will require a consideration of the representations themselves (either because the deliberative obligation requires their personal consideration or because the detail and nuance of such representations is apt to be lost through any attempt to summarise them with the consequence that the Minister would not be personally informed by the actual content of the representations in undertaking the required deliberation).
292 His Honour made this statement in the course of "[d]rawing… together" the authorities concerning whether a Minister's reliance on a summary prepared by another person could satisfy an obligation personally to consider that which has been summarised. Those authorities included Tickner v Chapman and Carrascalao, both of which Colvin J discussed at some length. His Honour was clearly not seeking to depart from the principles that these cases set down.
293 After reserving judgment in this matter, the Full Court delivered its judgment and reasons in the McQueen appeal and the Court later gave leave to the parties to file further submissions on that case. (I note that the Minister applied to the High Court for special leave to appeal from the Full Court's judgment, and that this application has been referred for hearing by that Court as if on appeal.)
294 The McQueen Case concerned an exercise of the Minister's power under s 501CA(4) of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) to revoke a mandatory cancellation of a person's visa under s 501(3A), if the Minister were satisfied that there was "another reason" why the cancellation should be revoked and the person made representations to the Minister to this effect. The Minister had declined to revoke Mr McQueen's visa, a decision that was set aside at first instance. On appeal, the Full Court upheld the primary judge's conclusion that the Minister was not entitled to rely solely on a summary of Mr McQueen's representations, consideration of which conditioned the exercise of the power under s 501CA(4).
295 The Court's holding depended on a close analysis of s 501CA of the Migration Act. The Court emphasised that: (1) the Act gave the Minister a choice as to whether to exercise the power personally or to delegate it; (2) where the Minister exercised the power personally, the applicant lost a right to merits review; (3) an exercise of the power affected the applicant's personal liberty; (4) the power was one of last resort; and (5) the only chance for a person to avoid these consequences was to persuade the Minister by the person's representations to undo the effect of the visa cancellation mandated by s 501(3A). At [89]-[90], the Court said:
Parliament has given the Minister a choice as to whether to exercise the power personally or delegate it, and has attached different consequences - in terms of merits review - depending on the choice made. A decision by the Minister personally to exercise the s 501CA(4) power deprives a person of a right to merits review (see s 501CA(7), and cf s 500(1)(ba)), deprives them of a hearing and of a fresh decision on possibly different material. It means the representations cannot be added to, or explained, or emphasised; they stand or fall as they are.
Further, the statutory power in s 501CA(4) affects liberty. It also affects a person's ability to remain lawfully in Australia. These are the most profound of consequences for an individual. The occasion for the exercise of the power is a "last resort" situation, where a person's visa has already been cancelled, without notice or natural justice. Parliament had identified the satisfaction of the repository of the power as the condition upon which the revocation power should be exercised, and the only opportunity the affected individual has to persuade the Ministerial repository of the power to exercise it favourably is through the representations they have been invited to make.
296 The Court distinguished Tickner v Chapman, Carrascalao and other authorities, which did not "address the point" raised in the case before it: see especially [84], [89]-[106]. The Court evidently did not seek to depart from the principles in those cases; and certainly did not overrule those authorities.
297 Tickner v Chapman and Carrascalao remain authoritative (and binding on a single judge) where they are applicable. The features of s 501CA mentioned at [295] above, and which led the Court to conclude that it was not open to the Minister in the McQueen appeal to rely on a Departmental summary, are absent from that part of the autonomous sanctions regime with which the present case is concerned. The representations in that case could not "be added to, or explained, or emphasised" and had to "stand or fall as they are", with an adverse outcome potentially causing the applicant long-term, irreparable hardship (see [89]); but in this case a designated or declared person may apply for revocation of their designation or declaration whenever they wish, subject only to the constraint in reg 11(3).
298 Having regard to the above-mentioned considerations, I reject the applicant's implicit submission that the power at issue in this case is sufficiently analogous to the power at issue in the McQueen appeal to lead to the conclusion that it was not open to the Minister here to rely on the Departmental summary, in the form of the statement of case.
299 This is not, of course, the end of the matter, because, relevantly here, a materially deficient summary may give rise to the inference that the Minister's decision-making process was fatally flawed. That is, the Minister did not give the consideration he or she was required to give to making the decision in question. Similarly, a Departmental attempt to summarise a substantive argument may fail because the summary loses the substantive force that it might otherwise have had. See Carrascalao at [61], quoted at [289] above.
300 As we have seen, the applicant submitted, and the Minister accepted, that even if the Minister were entitled to rely on a summary of the first statutory declaration in the statement of case, she could not rely on a summary which was "materially deficient" or incomplete. Since the Minister in fact had before her a number of documents that the applicant had provided (see [38]-[39] & [54] above), the applicant was also required to establish that any deficiencies in the statement of case were not remedied by these other documents. This was not a case like McQueen (first instance), Carrascalao or Tickner v Chapman, where the question of whether the Minister had considered representations turned exclusively on whether those representations had been effectively summarised in the relevant Departmental summary.
301 Having read the applicant's Omissions Table and the Minister's response, I do not accept that there were any material elements of the applicant's first statutory declaration that were not adequately conveyed to the Minister by either the statement of case or the other material before the Minister. I propose to explain this conclusion by reference to some of the allegedly missing elements of the first statutory declaration that the applicant's submissions emphasised as being particularly significant.
302 I commence with the applicant's submission that an element of his first statutory declaration was his statement that he had no relevant political connections and had never received any preferential treatment from the Russian government. The applicant contended that no other material before the Minister adequately conveyed this statement to her.
303 The precise terms of the first statutory declaration relevant to this issue (as set out in the applicant's Omissions Table) were as follows:
19. I decided to leave the research institute at which I was working and go into business due to a lack of state funding for research institutes. In 1992, I co-founded EvrazMetall together with several business partners.
20. As the 2003 FT Article states, I did not have (and do not have) any political connections with or receive preferential treatment from the Russian government (or any other government). Nor did any of the other co founders of EvrazMetall. Further, EvrazMetall did not, and I personally did not, purchase any Russian government assets that were privatised during the 1990s.
21. EvrazMetall, Evraz Group SA (SA) and Evraz did not acquire assets that were privatised by the Russian government. The success of those companies was not a result of any political connections held by me, or preferential treatment from the Russian government (or any other government). Rather, the success of those companies was entirely a result of the expertise, skill and business acumen held by me and others who held roles in those companies.
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68. I have never had any personal relationship with the President or his predecessors. Nor I have ever had any one-on-one interactions with the President of Russia or his predecessor.
69. I have met the President of Russia on occasion in the course of hosting visits by dignitaries to the operations of EvrazMetall, SA and Evraz. That hosting was no different to my hosting of visits by other heads of state to the operations of EvrazMetall, SA and Evraz in their respective countries. My hosting of the President of Russia on such visits did not involve any personal connection with him.
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75. I do not have any other personal or political connection with the President of Russia or with the Russian regime. I have never had any such personal or political connection. EvrazMetall, SA and Evraz have never benefited from any preferential treatment as a result of such connections held by any person associated with those companies. Rather, as explained at paragraph 20 above and in the 2003 FT Article, the success of those companies was a function of the skill, expertise and business acumen of its Board members and employees.
304 The applicant evidently relied on a copy of an article published by the Financial Times on 27 August 2003 titled "The science of forging a steel empire" to support these statements. The applicant referred expressly to the article at [17] of his first statutory declaration. The applicant confirmed that the contents of the article were "accurate" and that it was an exhibit to the first statutory declaration. The passages of the article relevant to the applicant's lack of political connections with, or preferential treatment from, the Russian government are set out below:
EvrazHolding is a product of Russia's growth since the 1998 financial crisis and Mr Abramov is representative of the second wave of Russian magnates who went into business after the best assets had been taken.
Unlike the first wave of politically connected "oligarchs", such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Vladimir Potanin, Mr Abramov had neither political leverage nor financial resources to help him benefit from Russia's chaotic privatisation of the 1990s: "I did not believe privatisation was irreversible in this country and did not want to be part of it".
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While the first wave of Russian oligarchs grabbed whatever assets they could, Mr Abramov acquired them in a much more focused way.
305 It is then necessary to compare the contents of the first statutory declaration, including the article exhibited to it, with the material that was before the Minister. I turn first to the applicant's revocation application.
306 Under [4] of "A. Summary", the applicant's revocation application stated the following in respect of this issue:
(4) That criterion is not met. Mr Abramov is not, and has not been, engaging in an activity or performing a function that is of economic or strategic significance to Russia. That is because, in summary:
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(f) at no time has Mr Abramov had any material connection to the Russian government or the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.
The revocation application went on to say:
79. It has not been suggested by the Minister that Mr Abramov has any personal connection with the Russian government or President Putin. Nonetheless, for the avoidance of doubt, it should be noted that Mr Abramov has no such connection.
80. Mr Abramov has met President Putin in the course of hosting visits by dignitaries to the operations of EvrazMetall, SA and Evraz. Those encounters were no different from Mr Abramov's hosting of visits by other heads of state in connection with his roles in EvrazMetall, SA and Evraz.
81. Mr Abramov has never had any personal relationship, or any one-on-one interactions, with President Putin or his predecessors.
82. While Mr Abramov received two awards from the Russian government in 2016, those awards were bestowed in recognition of Mr Abramov's public work and charitable activities. President Putin was not present at either of the ceremonies at which Mr Abramov received those awards.
83. In 2017, a group of people, including Mr Abramov, were presented with awards by the Russian Geographical Society. Mr Abramov received his award in recognition of his philanthropic work. The awards were presented by President Putin in his capacity as the Chairman of the Society's Board of Trustees. However, the awards were not bestowed by or on behalf of the Russian government.
84. Mr Abramov does not have any other personal or political connection with President Putin or the Russian government. In particular, as noted above, EvrazMetall, SA and Evraz have succeeded as a result of the skill, expertise and business acumen of their Board members and employees, rather than because of political connections held by Mr Abramov or any other person associated with them. None of EvrazMetall, SA or Evraz has purchased assets that were privatised by the Russian government.
307 Furthermore, in his 29 August 2022 response to the letter from the Minister's Department of 12 August 2022, the applicant stated in relation to this issue that:
108. That [foreign policy] objective would not be advanced at all by declining to revoke the Decisions, given that:
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(3) Mr Abramov has no material connection to the Russian government or to President Putin;125
(4) Mr Abramov's success as a businessman has been as a result of his own skill, expertise and business acumen (and those of his employees and board members of Evraz and its predecessors), rather than as a result of any connection with President Putin or the Russian government;126
125 Revocation Application at [79]-[83].
126 Revocation Application at [84].
308 Regarding this issue, the statement of case also informed the Minister as follows:
42.2. Abramov has personally made a significant contribution to the growth and success of Evraz through his performance of numerous high-level roles within the group over an extended period, including in particular his roles as co-founder and General Director of EvrazMetall from its inception in 1992, CEO and Chairman of Evraz Group SA from December 2004 until January 2006, and Chairman of Evraz Group SA and then Evraz plc from December 2008 to April 2022. To these roles Abramov brought "extensive experience and expertise on the [Evraz] Group's key markets",79 and Abramov himself attributes the success of those companies to "the skill, expertise and business acumen of [their] Board members and employees".80
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52. Abramov claims that he has no personal or political connections to the Russian government or President Putin. The Department assesses it is unlikely that a businessman of Abramov's standing - with a net worth of US$6.4B (according to Forbes) - and with over 30 years in the steel and coal industry in Russia has no personal or political connection to the Russia Government.
79 Evraz Annual Report 2021 (Attachment 1), page 114; Abramov's First Statutory Declaration, [61.a]. These matters led Evraz plc to decide that Abramov could serve as Chairman notwithstanding his lack of independence, and beyond the 9 year maximum term specified in the UK Corporate Governence [sic] Code.
126 Abramov's First Statutory Declaration, [75].
309 I accept that, as the Minister submitted, the substance of the applicant's case on this issue, as set out in his first statutory declaration, was contained in his revocation application, and would have been evident to the reader. The revocation application expressly stated that "[the Applicant] does not have any other personal or political connection with President Putin or the Russian government". It also stated, "EvrazMetall, SA and Evraz have succeeded as a result of the skill, expertise and business acumen of their Board members and employees, rather than because of political connections held by Mr Abramov or any other person associated with them". The revocation application affirmed, "[n]one of EvrazMetall, SA or Evraz has purchased assets that were privatised by the Russian government". The statement of case similarly advised the Minister that the applicant attributed the success of Evraz and its predecessors to the skill, expertise and business acumen of their Board members and employees and drew the Minister's attention to the applicant's claim "that he has no personal or political connections to the Russian Government or President Putin". It cannot be said that the Minister did not have before her all the applicant wished to say on this issue.
310 In the Omissions Table, the applicant attempted to highlight a number of points of difference between the way he addressed this issue in his first statutory declaration and the way the issue was put in the statement of case and other material before the Minister. First, the applicant observed that the statement at [42.2] of the statement of case that "[the applicant] himself attributes the success of those companies to 'the skill, expertise and business acumen of [their] Board members and employees'" omits the word "entirely", which was included in the almost identical statement at [21] of the first statutory declaration. Mr Merkel KC, for the applicant, submitted that this omission was important because "the word 'entirely' puts a very significantly different complexion on what's said there" because it "negatives influence or connection" and is "part of a total picture sought to be presented" in that it establishes that "there was no connection … no influence, both in respect of continuing influence and connection with Evraz or the Russian Government".
311 It seems to me that the applicant overstates the significance of the absence of the word "entirely" from the statement of case. In any event, though it does not use the word "entirely", the revocation application clearly stated that the applicant had no personal or political connections to Russia's President or its government. It affirmed unequivocally that the success of Evraz and its predecessors was attributable to the "skill, expertise and business acumen of their Board members and employees" and not "political connections". The applicant's 29 August 2022 response to the Department's letter of 12 August 2022 repeated the very same point. Thus, the point that the applicant sought to make - that his success and Evraz's success were in no way attributable to any connections with, or preferential treatment from, the Russian government - was plainly made in the material before the Minister.
312 The applicant also took issue with the fact that the statement of case referred to his statement that he has no personal or political connections to the Russian Government or President Putin as a "claim", and instructed the Minister that the claim was "unlikely", thereby casting doubt on his credit. The difficulty with this submission is that it fails to take account of the relationship between the Minister and her Department. As I have already explained, the Minister can properly look for, and expect to receive, advice from her Departmental officers relating to a decision of this kind. In this context, Departmental officers were obliged to advise the Minister that the applicant's account was not consistent with their knowledge and experience, as they did here. It was, of course, for the Minister to reach her own decision. The use of the word "claim" in the context of this Departmental advice does not detract from the fact that the applicant's position on the issue was clearly before the Minister. The applicant put the same submission a little differently on other occasions (referring to descriptions of his factual contentions in the statement of case as "submissions" or "assertions") but none of these versions overcame this difficulty.
313 As already noted, in this context, the applicant also submitted that the material before the Minister failed to disclose that, in making the first statutory declaration, the applicant had "sworn" to the truth of the relevant fact that he had no political connections with, and had not received preferential treatment from, the Russian Government or the Russian President. This submission was an aspect of the applicant's broader submission that the Departmental summary omitted to disclose the solemnity or seriousness with which he put forward the facts and circumstances set out in his first statutory declaration. By analogy with Gardiner, the consequence was, so the applicant submitted, that the Minister could not have appreciated the seriousness of the matters sworn by him in his first statutory declaration.
314 I do not accept the premise of the applicant's argument that the material before the Minister did not disclose that the applicant's statutory declaration supported the facts and circumstances on which he relied. First, the applicant's revocation application would not only have alerted the Minister to the existence of a forthcoming statutory declaration, but would also have put the Minister on notice that all the factual propositions on which the applicant relied would be supported by a statutory declaration. This was because the application, which was before the Minister, expressly stated that the application "will be supported by a statutory declaration that will be filed within the next 7 days" that "will depose to the facts that are relevant to this Application". The application made it clear that one of the facts that the applicant regarded as relevant to this application was that he had no relevant connections with, and had received no preferential treatment from, the Russian Government. It would have been clear from the many references to the first statutory declaration in the footnotes in the statement of case that the applicant had in fact made such a statutory declaration. It is immaterial that the statement of case might have added more footnotes to the first statutory declaration with reference to other statements. This is because the material that was in fact before the Minister clearly conveyed that the applicant intended to make a statutory declaration in support of all the relevant facts (as he saw them) and he had done so.
315 Since I do not accept the premise to the applicant's argument on this issue, this argument fails. It is unnecessary to consider the Minister's further submission that, because a statutory declaration is made under the Statutory Declarations Act 1959 (Cth) and not "sworn" in the sense of an oath (or affirmed as for an affirmation), the reasoning in Gardiner is inapplicable
316 The applicant's submissions also identified a second significant element of the first statutory declaration that the other material before her did not reveal. This was the matter of Evraz's compliance with the Listing Rules of the UK Financial Conduct Authority. The parts of the first statutory declaration relevant to this issue (as set out in the applicant's Omissions Table) were as follows:
39. Evraz was admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange Main Market on 7 November 2011: 2011 Annual Report at p 32. Its listing on the London Stock Exchange is in accordance with the Listing Rules of the UK Financial Conduct Authority (the Listing Rules). The current version of the Listing Rules dated May 2022 is publicly available, and may be found at . An extract of the Listing Rules dated May 2022 is exhibited at AA-1 at pages 28 to 36.
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41. Section 6.5 of the Listing Rules contains additional requirements for "premium listing" on the London Stock Exchange. Evraz was a premium listed company. Section 6.5.1 provides that an applicant for listing with a controlling shareholder must demonstrate that, despite having a controlling shareholder, the applicant is able to carry on an independent business as its main activity. Section 6.5.4 provides that an applicant for listing with a controlling shareholder upon admission must have in place a written and legally binding agreement with its controlling shareholder which is intended to ensure that the controlling shareholder complies with undertakings that:
a. transactions and arrangements with the controlling shareholder (and/ or any of its associates) will be conducted at arm's length and on normal commercial terms;
b. neither the controlling shareholder nor any of its associates will take any action that would have the effect of preventing the applicant from complying with its obligations under the Listing Rules; and
c. neither the controlling shareholder nor any of its associates will propose or procure the proposal of a shareholder resolution which is intended or appears to be intended to circumvent the proper application of the Listing Rules.
317 Of the materials before the Minister, only the revocation application referred to the Listing Rules. Under the heading "A. Summary", the revocation application stated (at [4(4)(d)and (e)]):
(4) That criterion is not met. Mr Abramov is not, and has not been, engaging in an activity or performing a function that is of economic or strategic significance to Russia. That is because, in summary:
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(d) Mr Abramov's indirect minority shareholding did not, and does not currently, give him control over Evraz or the capacity to influence any aspect of the business carried on by Evraz;
(e) relatedly, Evraz and its other major shareholders are and were at all material times subject to the highest standards of governance, transparency and information disclosure, set out in the Listing Rules of the UK Financial Conduct Authority (the Listing Rules) and the UK Corporate Governance Code (the Code), which ensure that Evraz has been and remains independent of Mr Abramov or any other person;
318 The revocation application went on to state:
64. Evraz was admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange Main Market on 7 November 2011. As a result, Evraz committed itself to complying with the highest standards of governance, transparency and information disclosure, set out in the Listing Rules and the Code. As discussed further below, those standards ensure that Evraz has been and remains independent of Mr Abramov or any other person.
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72. Since its incorporation, Evraz has had "relationship agreements" with its major shareholders. The relationship agreements are necessary for Evraz to comply with section 6.5 of the Listing Rules, which contains additional requirements for premium-listed companies, such as Evraz:
(1) Section 6.5.1 provides that an applicant for listing with a controlling shareholder must demonstrate that, despite having a controlling shareholder, the applicant is able to carry on an independent business as its main activity.
(2) Section 6.5.4 provides that an applicant for listing with a controlling shareholder upon admission must have in place a written and legally binding agreement with its controlling shareholder which is intended to ensure that the controlling shareholder complies with undertakings that:
(a) transactions and arrangements with the controlling shareholder (and/ or any of its associates) will be conducted at arm's length and on normal commercial terms;
(b) neither the controlling shareholder nor any of its associates will take any action that would have the effect of preventing the applicant from complying with its obligations under the listing rules; and
(c) neither the controlling shareholder nor any of its associates will propose or procure the proposal of a shareholder resolution which is intended or appears to be intended to circumvent the proper application of the listing rules.
319 Plainly enough, the applicant's statements about this issue in his first statutory declaration and revocation application are to much the same effect. The only elements of the discussion of this issue in first statutory declaration that are absent from the revocation application are the references to Evraz's Annual Report and the statement that "[i]ts listing on the London Stock Exchange is in accordance with the Listing Rules of the UK Financial Conduct Authority". The substance of this matter is addressed in [72] of the revocation application. The applicant did not make any submission to the effect that the omission of any elements of the discussion in the first statutory declaration resulted in the Minister failing to consider any part of the applicant's case on this issue.
320 In the Omissions Table, the applicant did submit, however, that parts of the first statutory declaration relevant to this issue were not adequately captured by the relevant parts of revocation application because those parts of the revocation application did not "refer to the First Statutory Declaration or otherwise indicate that [they were] based on [the Applicant's] sworn testimony". As explained at [314], the absence of any specific reference to the first statutory declaration in these parts of the revocation application was immaterial because the material actually before the Minister clearly conveyed that the applicant intended to make a statutory declaration in support of all the relevant facts (as he saw them) and that he had done so.
321 It will be clear from the Omissions Table that the applicant submitted that there were numerous other pertinent omissions resulting from the failure to provide the Minister with a copy of the first statutory declaration. I have examined each of them and, for reasons akin to those set out at [312], [314] and [320] above, there was no salient omission. Nor did the applicant identify why any difference in expression would result individually or cumulatively in a failure to consider the applicant's revocation application and the circumstances relied on to justify that application: cf. Sanctions Regulations, reg 11(2).
322 As already stated (at [241]), the revocation decision made under reg 10 was separate and distinct from the Minister's second decision to designate and declare the applicant under reg 6. If, however, these decisions are properly seen as part of the same decision-making process and in consequence a relevant error infects both decisions, for the reasons stated, the applicant would nonetheless fail to make out this ground.
323 Accordingly, for the reasons stated, the applicant's ground 4 cannot succeed.