The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union has ruled that it will not pursue enforcement actions against Italy’s accreditation body, Accredia, for failure to comply with EU sanctions against Russia.
Oxebridge filed the complaint after it was learned that Accredia’s CEO, Emanuele Riva, used his position as head of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) to gain a market advantage in Russia. For years, IAF ignored US, EU, and UK sanctions against Russia, and continued to allow two major certification bodies to issue IAF-marked certificates in the country. Those two bodies are Russian Register, in Moscow, and TEST, out of St. Petersburg.
TEST, in particular, raised concerns as it certified various companies operated by Gazprom, the Russian state-run oil and gas firm, which is under specific sanctions.
Riva personally declared that IAF procedures took precedence over international law and refused to comply with the sanctions. IAF members such as ANAB, UKAS, and Akkreditierung Austria continued to operate in Russia, accrediting major CBs like URS and Quality Austria for certificates in the country. ANAB initially refused to comply, but eventually declared it was “self-sanctioning” and stopped all business in Russia and Belarus.
Frustrated by the IAF’s refusal to abide by sanctions, in May of 2022, the European Commission issued a mandate clarifying that the practice of accreditation must stop in Russia. This was prompted by Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 and Ukraine in 2022. Sanctions had been in place since 2014.
The EU directive, along with high-profile pressure from Oxebridge, led the IAF to reverse its position and issue a mandate stopping all member accreditations in Russia. The first published draft of that statement was immediately pulled, apparently due to pressure from Russia, for including the word “war” in its description of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Riva, however, applied the rule selectively to benefit his own company. UKAS and Akkreditierung Austria were forced to stop accrediting certificates in the country, and Russian Register lost key partnerships and accreditation, effectively making its certificates worthless. But Riva continued to allow his accreditation body, Accredia, to accredit the Russian certification body TEST. This left Accredia the only remaining European accreditation body operating in Russia, giving it a market advantage. Oxebridge branded the move as criminal fraud.
In March of 2023, nearly a year later, Accredia continued to benefit from this move, even as Russian President Vladimir Putin was branded a war criminal by the International Criminal Court.
The EC had previously claimed violations of the sanctions were “serious criminal offenses,” and as a result, a finding against Accredia would expose Riva to arrest and detention. In April of 2023, Oxebridge filed a formal complaint with the EC against Accredia and the Italian trade ministry. The EU acknowledged this complaint and opened a probe into Riva in June of 2023.
Behind the scenes, however, Riva took steps to avoid his own arrest. Using the time between Oxebridge’s filing and the EC’s acknowledgement, Riva coordinated with the Indian accreditation body, NABCB, to transfer the TEST accreditation to that country. India does not have sanctions against Russia and, silently, in May of 2023, the transfer was complete.
The NABCB is a member of IAF, but Riva has not forced it to comply with the IAF mandate against operations in Russia, allowing TEST to continue to operate.
Oxebridge has contacted NABCB CEO Rajesh Maheshwari about the move, but he has not yet provided a response. Maheshwari previously blocked Oxebridge on LinkedIn, despite never having had any contact, suggesting he does not want NABCB to be subject to any third-party questions.
On March 27th of 2025, the European Commission notified Oxebridge that it has closed its investigation into Accredia because of this swap.
According to the available information and following the analysis of the correspondence with the Member State, the assessment of your complaint revealed that there is no breach of Union law as the accreditation of the mentioned conformity assessment body in Russia was suspended in 2023 and revoked in 2024. In this respect, your grievance does not amount to an infringement of Regulation 833/2014 as it does not appear that the Italian authorities have misapplied Union restrictive measures (“sanctions”).
The EC ignored the fact that Riva and Accredia had been in violation of the sanctions since they were first imposed in 2014. The ruling is bizarre in that it would allow entities to break international law up until the point that the crimes are reported, at which point they may merely stop and not face any punitive actions.
The Italian government has refused to investigate Riva, and so the scandal appears unlikely to ever result in any actions against him.
In January, Riva was feted in the Philippines during a conference on “Ethical and Professional Responsibility in Accreditation” within the ISO scheme.
The IAF is set to merge with ILAC and form a new universal accreditation oversight body, GLOBAC, but already faces scandals. Germany has announced it will not join GLOBAC, as it has identified the new organization as a potentially illegal cartel. GLOBAC has refused to form as a non-profit organization and failed to trademark its name, allowing a Turkish certificate mill to obtain the trademark and set up shop selling fake ISO certificates under the brand.
The move raises new questions about Riva’s competence as the IAF Chair.
The prior IAF chair, Xiao Jianhua, used the position to push Chinese trade policy. Riva replaced Xiao in 2021.
