JUSTINE FASSION is an international trade lawyer advising clients on sanctions, export controls, investment controls, customs, and other trade measures affecting market access and supply chains.
Justine counsels clients on the full spectrum of EU sanctions and export controls issues for a wide range of transactional, regulatory, or contentious matters. Justine’s decade of experience with fast-evolving sanctions and export controls rules, combined with her deep understanding of regulators in Europe, allows her to provide strategic and practical advice to clients across many industries. She also regularly assists clients with licenses or other regulatory applications and has represented clients in the context of several enforcement actions before national competent authorities. Justine is one of the few lawyers in her generation with firsthand experience on the application and interpretation of EU encryption controls and the new controls on emerging technology.
In recent years, Justine has been actively involved in several high-profile disputes implicating the application of Russia sanctions in the context of projects or commercial transactions. She has been able to draw from her unparalleled regulatory experience in the sanctions field to develop successful litigation strategies or reach satisfactory settlement outcomes for clients in those cases.
Justine also assists clients in complex cross-border transactions with sanctions or national security implications resulting from foreign investment controls in the EU and globally, and conducts legal and compliance due diligence in the context of those corporate transactions.
In addition, Justine advises on EU customs law, classification, rules of origin, import controls, and other measures affecting the import of products into the EU. More recently, Justine has been counselling clients on the application of the EU Forced Labour Regulation and other EU regulations affecting the supply chain.
Justine has lectured on EU trade law, sanctions, export controls and investment controls at the College of Europe, Sciences Po Law School, and KU Leuven and is a regular speaker at international conferences on these topics.
Justine is a recommended practitioner by Who’s Who Legal for Foreign Investment Review (2021-2024) and Trade & Customs (since 2024).
Prior to joining Sidley, Justine worked in the political division of the French Embassy in Malaysia, in the legal department of the French Permanent Mission to the WTO in Geneva, and in investment arbitration and litigation practices at other international law firms in Paris.