In May 2018, the European Union amended its blocking regulations to counteract the extraterritorial reach of the recently re-imposed sanctions by the United States.The blocking regulations were instituted to safeguard EU citizens from the far-reaching applications of the U.S sanctions regime. However, the role of blocking regulations in the context of international arbitration is yet to be explore extensively. Owing to the paucity of cases where blocking regulations were applied in the realm of arbitration, a number of speculations regarding their nature and scope of application have arisen. Thus far, none of these speculations have sufficiently found basis and have remained elusive. This post briefly analyzes the legal nature of blocking regulations in the context of international arbitration by examining blocking regulations in light of the available case laws.