Panama Maritime Authority Tightens Ship Registry Rules to Combat Sanctions Evasion

The Panama Maritime Authority (PMA) has announced stringent measures to maintain the integrity of its ship registry in response to recent sanctions imposed on seven Panamanian-flagged vessels by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

The Panama Ship Registry is currently the world’s largest with over 8,000 vessels totaling 250 million GT.

“We will automatically cancel the registration of any vessel found to be involved in illegal activities or that changes its flag to evade sanctions,” the PMA said in an update.

To bolster its regulatory framework, Panama has implemented several key strategies to combat sanctions evasion and maintain the integrity of its ship registry. They include restructuring its monitoring capabilities by transferring the Monitoring and Control Section to the Maritime Ship Protection Department, introducing the “Panama Flag Precheck Process” in September 2024 to enhance due diligence procedures for ship registration, and joining the Registry Information Sharing Compact (RISC) to prevent vessels from registry-hopping to evade sanctions.

The PMA’s General Directorate of Merchant Marine is also exploring additional measures for swift removal of vessels linked to illicit activities. These actions are supported by existing legal mechanisms, including Article 49 of the General Law 57 of the Merchant Marine, which provides grounds for automatic cancellations.

“The Panamanian Ship Registry will not negotiate with those seeking to use it improperly and will apply the established legal mechanisms to act according to due process and legal security,” the PMA said in statement.

Last month, OFAC sanctioned over a dozen entities and vessels involved in shipping Iranian crude oil and liquid petroleum gas to Syria and East Asia on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and Hezbollah. The sanctions specifically targeted multiple ships associated with the fleet of Syrian magnate Abdul Jalil Mallah and his brother Luay al-Mallah.

The ships identified included the Panama-flagged vessels ETERNAL SUCCESS (IMO: 9307633), ETERNAL 8 (IMO: 9232448), ETERNAL PEACE (IMO: 9259745), SERENE I (IMO: 9197832), FENG TAI (IMO: 9248473), CONFIDENCE P (IMO: 9178044), and RIVAL (IMO: 9117818).