Anti-corruption sanctions: mid year update
Our midyear Sanctions Watch update provides a snapshot of changes in anti-corruption sanction designation over the previous six months.
September 2026
Our midyear Sanctions Watch update provides a snapshot of changes in anti-corruption sanction designation over the previous six months.
With many countries making big additions on anti-corruption day on the 9th December, our mid-year update typically sees less change than our annual update.
Nevertheless, we saw a few areas of movement over the past months.
The EU removed three persons from its Tunisia sanctions at the end of January 2026. The Tunisian and Ukrainian designations are the last holdovers of the EU’s misappropriation sanction regimes, brought in following the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011 on and the Ukrainian revolution of 2014.
The US removed two persons from its Global Magnitsky Sanctions regimes, but remains the single jurisdiction with the largest number of designations of persons for corruption, with 123 total remaining.
Swiss designations
A change in our reporting this time is the inclusion of Syria designations under the Swiss Foreign Illicit Assets Act, which we did not include in our last update. This brings the total number of Swiss designations to 55, all of which are in response to Maduro or Assad related assets.
Table: Changes in individual listings in key anti-corruption sanctions regimes in the previous 12 months, as of September 2026
Regime | Removals | Additions | Total corruption designations |
US Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act | 2 | 0 | 123 |
UK Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions Regulations | 0 | 0 | 64 |
EU misappropriation sanctions Tunisia | 3 | 0 | 27 |
EU misappropriation sanctions Ukraine | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Canadian Freezing Assets of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act | 0 | 0 | 25 |
Canadian Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act | 0 | 0 | 55 |
Swiss Foreign Illicit Assets Act | 0 | 0 | 55 |
Total | 1 | 51 | 302 |
Sanctions Watch
Sanctions Watch, a one-of-a-kind resource on anti-corruption sanctions, tracks individuals sanctioned in response to serious corruption allegations under key anti-corruption regimes worldwide, including Canada, the European Union, Switzerland, UK, and United States.
Sanctions Watch allows people to search for and find information on individuals sanctioned for corruption by name, country, as well as sanction regime. Besides profiles of each sanctioned individual, the platform also offers analysis and resources about each anti-corruption sanctions regime, as well as compliance guidelines for the private sector, and our research in different countries about anti-corruption sanctions.
CiFAR updates the website and database on which it is based every six months. To see the individuals sanctioned for their alleged involvement in corruption or to download the complete database, please visit https://sanctionswatch.cifar.eu/