In International Shipping News 01/05/2015
Iran’s seizure of the Maersk Tigris cargo ship probably stems from a $3.6 million judgment in a decade-long dispute over 10 shipping containers, the Maersk Group said.
The shipping company’s statement Thursday that the confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz with the ship flying the flag of the Marshall Islands “presumably” was related to commercial litigation echoed comments a day earlier by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif that his country’s naval forces acted under a court order.
Iran has a right in some circumstances to seize a ship in its territorial waters if properly authorized by a court, according to Martin Davies, professor of maritime law at the Tulane University Law School in New Orleans.
“Having said that, it’s most unusual for any country to try to arrest a ship that is actually under way, despite its right to do so,” said Davies, who is director of Tulane’s Maritime Law Center.
After the seizure, Republican U.S. Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called the incident a “serious and deliberate provocation against the United States,” which has some defense obligations for Marshall Islands-flagged vessels. Some commentators suggested that Iranian hard-liners seemed to have seized the ship in response to the movement of U.S. warships close to Yemen or to undercut negotiations over their nation’s nuclear program.
Court Ruling
In its statement, Copenhagen-based AP Moeller-Maersk A/S said it learned only on Thursday that an Iranian appeals court ruling has ordered it to pay $3.6 million stemming from a cargo dispute that’s been in Iranian courts since 2005.
“We have, however, not received any written or formal confirmation that the seizure and the cargo case are connected,” the Copenhagen-based shipping company said.
The commercial dispute dates to January 2005, when 10 containers arrived in Dubai after being transported by Maersk Line on behalf of an Iranian company, according to Maersk. The containers weren’t collected, and after 90 days in accordance with local law, UAE authorities disposed of the cargo, Maersk said.
Since then, the Iranian company has asserted legal claims against Maersk in various Iranian courts in an effort to recover $4 million as the value of the cargo, Maersk said.
In February, an appeals court in Tehran ordered Maersk Line to pay the Iranian company $163,000, according to the statement. The Iranian company appealed the case, seeking more money, which resulted in the $3.6 million judgment. Maersk said it doesn’t have details of the ruling.
Warning Shots
Naval forces of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps confronted the Maersk Tigris on Tuesday, ordering it farther into Iranian waters. When the ship’s captain refused to comply, Iranians fired warning shots across the ship’s bridge, according to the U.S. Iranian military personnel then boarded the ship and brought it closer to shore.
International law permits a ship to be detained while in a nation’s territorial waters if such action is recognized under that country’s laws. The Strait of Hormuz is an unusual situation because established international shipping lanes include Iranian territorial waters.
Maersk said the vessel was in international waters at the time it was seized.
Myron Nordquist, a maritime law specialist at the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the seizure of the vessel may violate international law, even if it was in Iran’s territorial waters, if the ship was operating within internationally recognized transit lanes.
Call for Release
Maersk called on Iran to release the crew and vessel “as soon as possible. The crew isn’t employed by Maersk Line, nor is the vessel owned by Maersk Line,” and so aren’t parties to the commercial dispute, it said.
The Maersk Tigris is a time-charter vessel managed and crewed by Singapore-based Rickmers Shipmanagement Pte. Ltd. “on hire” to Maersk Line, the company said. The Rickmers Group said in a statement that a company representative was permitted to board the vessel Thursday and confirmed that its 24 crew members are safe.
Zarif, in his comments in New York on Wednesday, rejected efforts to link the ship’s seizure to current issues such as negotiations on a nuclear accord with the U.S. and other world powers.
“It is not a security issue or a political issue,” the foreign minister said. “We shouldn’t read too much into it. Some people try to read too much into anything that is taking place now in order to torpedo a process that is independent of all of those problems.”
U.S. Assistance
The Marshall Islands has requested U.S. assistance in securing the vessel’s release, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters in Washington on Wednesday. Under agreements with the Marshall Islands, the U.S. “has full authority and responsibility” for security and defense matters, Harf said, “including vessels flying their flag.”
Maritime lawyer Davies, though, said the U.S. has “limited responsibilities in relation to vessels flagged in the Marshall Islands, but those responsibilities do include full responsibility for security and defense.”
