Regulatory onslaught on the horizon for the maritime industry

In a recent article produced by Global Trade Review author Eleanor Wragg reports "In recent months, the shipping industry has been thrown into chaos by an unprecedented escalation of sanctions activity. Since July 2018, the US, through its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), has brought close to 800 actions against maritime vessels - the bulk of these in the last year alone. The impacts have been far-reaching: late last year, freight rates soared on the blacklisting of Chinese shipper Cosco for allegedly shipping Iranian crude and gas."

The article dated 28th April, covers the key areas of regulatory focus within the maritime industry:

• Going dark
• Ship-to-ship transfers
• Flag registry information sharing

Guy Sear Executive Director, Maritime & Trade at IHS Markit shares his thoughts on 'Going dark', "This assumption by regulators that AIS is a be all and end all certainly isn't the answer to the problem. We would recommend doing more of a typology review of the vessel: What is the behaviour of the vessel? Has it changed names or flags a lot? Has it swapped between operators? Has it had periods of time where people can't explicitly see where it has been owned and operated? Those for us are bigger red flags than whether the AIS has stopped working or been switched off."

Read the full article from Global Trade Review