The Panama Maritime Authority (PMA) has issued a decree giving it the ability to revoke the license of any vessel that appears on an international sanctions list.
According to Splash 247, the update legal mechanism makes it so that the PMA can quickly revoke the registration of any ships and vessel owners flagged by the U.S. Office of Foreign Asset control, the United Nations Security Council’s list of assets linked to terrorism, the EU, or the United Kingdom. In practice, once a vessel has been flagged, a report will be submitted to the PMA administrator to recommend cancelation, before the vessel is removed from the Panama Ship Registry (PSR), the world’s largest registry of ships. Prior to this new expedited process, it would take months to remove a vessel from the PSR.
According to S&P Global, roughly 22% of Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of oil tankers are registered with Panama. For months, Russia has used its fleet of uninsured vessels registered to multiple countries to get around price caps on oil implemented by G7 countries, sparking concerns over the lengthy process the PMA had in place to revoke those ships. An investigation from Politico also described the vessels as a “ticking time bomb” for an environmental disaster, with the poorly-maintained ships known to spill oil slicks along coast lines from Thailand to Mexico.
Moving forward, the PMA expects to be able to automatically revoke the registration of any vessel known to be involved in illegal activities, particularly for ships that change their flags to avoid sanctions. This will include vessels linked to arms smuggling, financing of terrorism and illegal trade.
