LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Thursday issued guidelines to help ship owners and insurers avoid sanctions risk, that industry players and a senior State Department official said followed months of discussions with industry.
The guidelines, known as a Global Maritime Advisory, concern sanctions on Iran, North Korea and Syria. Three industry sources said global commercial players had argued that an initial plan, outlined in March by a senior State Department official, would have disrupted international trade.
“The United States remains committed to disrupting shipping activities by malign actors worldwide – including sanctions evasion and smuggling – which may facilitate criminal activity and threatens international peace and security,” the State Department said in a release about the advisory.
The advisory was announced on March 9 by David Peyman, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. He said the advisory would among other things warn shippers not to turn off transponders and to not store Iranian oil.
Peyman has since left that role to take another job at the State Department, four sources said. The State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Peyman.
A maritime source said the industry was concerned the original outline of the advisory, which encouraged ship captains to take photographs of parties conducting ship to ship transfers that would be available to certain authorities, would have run into legal issues.
“One of the concerns we have is that the expectation that industry sectors should share personal data on suspicions of sanctions breaches will be problematic with data protection laws in Europe and elsewhere,” one maritime industry source said.
(Reporting by Jonathan Saul in London, Humeyra Pamuk and Timothy Gardner in Washington; Editing by David Gregorio)
