The establishment of the SPV demonstrates the EU’s effort to preserve the economic core of the JCPOA. However, the economic impact of the new instrument is currently expected to be symbolic. Not so much because of the legal and technical hurdles the E3 have to overcome to make the SPV operational, but mostly because it is not likely to shield European companies from the threat of US secondary sanctions if they do business targeted by those sanctions.
For more information about the impact of the US withdrawal from the JCPOA on EU companies, see our Client Alert of May 2018.