International legal firm Watson Farley Williams LLP (WFW) has issued a report highlighting some recent developments and forthcoming changes in the sanctions landscape in the UK, EU and US, compliance with which is vital to the shipping community. The report was authored by WFW’s London-based Assets & Structured Finance Partners Simon Kavanagh and David Osborne, (London), New-York-based Tax & Sanctions Partner Daniel Pilarski and Hamburg-based Regulatory & Competition Partner Christine Bader.
Recent decades have seen a proliferation of sanctions regimes, used as foreign and security policy tools. While these sometimes have conflicting requirements, they use broadly the same tools: prohibitions or restrictions on trading, exports and imports, and the freezing and blocking of funds and this makes them of particular relevance to the shipping sector, which is at the heart of world trade.
Against this background of increasingly complex sanctions regulation and ever closer attention by the relevant authorities, it is important to have a full understanding of the sanctions applicable to the industry, the risks they pose and the due diligence and compliance measures required to address these.
