Panama Adopts Zero-Tolerance Policy To Prevent The Misuse Of Its Flag

Panama is taking strict measures to prevent the misuse of its flag by adopting a zero-tolerance policy to uphold the credibility of its ship registry. This has led to the deregistration of 107 vessels, with 18 more cases under review.

It follows Executive Decree No. 512, which mandates the immediate removal of vessels from Panama’s registry if they or their owners appear on international sanctions lists.

Since the decree took effect, 125 ships have been targeted, resulting in over a hundred cancellations. A breakdown of the deregistered vessels shows that:

83 were flagged by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
32 were listed by the European Union
10 were under the United Kingdom’s sanctions list

Apart from decree no. 512, Panama has several other legal mechanisms to maintain the integrity of its fleet. These include:

-Article 49 of the General Law of the Merchant Marine (Law No. 57 of 2008): This law mandates the automatic deregistration of vessels involved in smuggling, piracy, illegal trade, or any other criminal activity.

-Executive Decree No. 245 (November 21, 2022): Establishes actions against fishing vessels involved in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

-Executive Decree No. 32 (February 4, 2018): Implements measures to deregister vessels linked to terrorist financing or maritime companies involved in such activities.

Panama is also focusing on modernising its fleet with younger vessels that use cleaner energy sources. The Acting Director General of the Merchant Marine, Rina Berrocal, stated that the country is enforcing stricter rules to remove non-compliant, high-emission, or high-risk vessels more efficiently.

The PMA is working on improving fleet monitoring and updating records of Panama-flagged ships

Reference: easternmarine

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