TL;DR

Niels Troost has made several public statements to the Wall Street Journal, the FT, and Hell Financiele Dagblad that the only reason his is sanctioned is because Gaurav Srivastava has waged a disinformation campaign against him, providing sanctioning authorities and the press biased dossiers on Troost that has skewed the narrative against him. [1]

An independent assessment of the information available in the open source suggests that perhaps there are more grounds that Troost has acknowledged as to why he has been sanctioned.

• 8 November 2023: the UK government imposed sanctions on Paramount DMCC and Francois Mauron personally for being “known to employ opaque ownership structures and has been used by Russia to soften the blow of oil-related sanctions imposed by the UK in coordination with G7 partners.” [2]

• 22 February 2024: the UK sanctioned Troost and his company, Paramount Energy & Commodities SA, because “Troost facilitates the unfettered trade of Russian oil outside the reach of UK and G7 sanctions, including through UAE-based Paramount Energy & Commodities DMCC, which the UK designated in November 2023.” [3]

• 16 December 2024: the European Union sanctioned Niels Troost and several associated entities - Paramount Energy & Commodities SA (PECSA), Paramount Energy & Commodities DMCC, Livna Shipping, BAP LTD and Cesco Holding SA - citing « In June 2022, Paramount DMCC took over and continued without interruption PECSA's oil business vis-a-vis Russia, underlining close and direct operational and strategic control of PECSA over its subsidiary, Paramount DMCC. Paramount DMCC repeatedly traded Russian crude oil above the price cap after its introduction. Moreover, Niels Troost is affiliated with Livna Shipping Ltd, which has been trading crude oil above the oil price cap after its introduction.» In the list of the European Union, the name of Maurice T. also appears as «associated individual » of Niels Troost. [4] 

• 23 December 2024: Switzerland adopted the 15th sanctions package against Troost in accordance with the EU. [5]

• 10 January 2025: Troost-affiliated entity, UAE-based Demex Trading Limited DMCC, was sanctioned by OFAC for having “bought over 700 shipments of crude oil and diesel fuel from Russia worth at least $8 billion in 2023.” [6] [This is significant because according to the ledger, Demex was the principal supplier to Paramount DMCC and conversely Paramount DMCC was the principal buyer of Demex supply. Demex greatly increased its trading in 2023 and it is possible that Paramount’s activity mirrored Demex’s just as it did historically.]