Since 2022, operating a vessel has required a verification nobody performed ten years earlier: the lawfulness of the cargo, the flag, the insurer, the bank and sometimes the ultimate buyer under European, American and United Nations sanctions regimes. Shipping concentrates that risk more than any other activity, because a single operation brings together operators subject to three or four different legal orders. A French charterer can breach an EU regulation without ever touching Union territory, and face criminal proceedings for it in France.
The European regime applicable to the carriage of Russian oil
Regulation (EU) No 833/2014 is the backbone of the system. Its article 3n governs the provision of maritime services connected with the carriage of Russian crude oil and petroleum products through the price cap mechanism agreed within the G7 coalition: transport, brokering, insurance and financing services may be provided only where the oil was purchased at or below the cap. The twentieth sanctions package, adopted in May 2026, added a mechanism for a complete prohibition on maritime services relating to those cargoes, activation of which rests with a Council decision taken after coordination with the G7 and the Price Cap Coalition. In other words, the current regime may shift without any new founding instrument, on activation alone. An owner who builds his compliance on the state of the law at the date his charterparty was signed is storing up difficulties.
To this is added the prohibition on access to Union ports and locks imposed on vessels suspected of participating in ship-to-ship transfers designed to circumvent the import ban or the price cap, a measure aimed at the so-called shadow fleet which strikes the vessel herself, irrespective of the good faith of the charterer of the current voyage.
Does your situation carry this risk? A first exchange allows us to measure it and to say how the matter would be organised.
The French criminal basis changed on 1 May 2026
This is the point most analyses have yet to absorb. Article 459 of the Customs Code, the historic reference for breaches of restrictive measures, was repealed by Order no. 2026-265 of 8 April 2026 enacting the legislative part of the Customs Code. Since 1 May 2026, failure to comply with restrictions on economic and financial relations laid down by Union law under articles 75 or 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, or by treaties and international agreements duly approved and ratified by France, is punishable under article L. 542-2 of the Customs Code, which applies the penalties of article L. 542-1: five years’ imprisonment and a fine equal to twice the amount involved, together with confiscation of the sum concerned, of the means of transport used, and of the assets constituting the direct or indirect proceeds of the offence, subject to the rights of a good faith owner.
Confiscation of the means of transport deserves a second reading when one is a shipowner. A vessel is a means of transport.
Sanctions clauses, insurance and withdrawal of cover
Maritime contracts have long incorporated sanctions clauses, notably the BIMCO standard forms, allowing a party to refuse to perform an operation that has become unlawful or exposed under a sanctions regime, and to draw the consequences for the voyage in progress. Their drafting determines very practical questions: who decides that the operation is prohibited, at what point, who bears freight and demurrage on an interrupted voyage, and on what notice. On the insurance side, protection and indemnity clubs and hull and cargo underwriters insert their own exclusions, which suspend cover where the operation contravenes a regime applicable to the insurer or its reinsurers. A vessel that loses P&I cover mid-voyage loses, in short order, access to most ports and the benefit of her certificates. Commercial sanction almost always precedes judicial sanction.
Finally there is the American extraterritorial dimension, which exposes a European operator with no apparent United States connection as soon as a dollar, a correspondent bank or a US-origin component enters the transaction. That exposure is managed upstream, through the structuring of flows and payments, never after a request for information has arrived.
Based in Paris, the firm acts in all French ports, from Le Havre to Marseille and from Nantes-Saint-Nazaire to Antibes, as well as before the Chambre arbitrale maritime de Paris, and works in English with shipowners, P&I clubs and foreign counsel.
Typical cases handled
The situations below are illustrative, anonymised scenarios. They show when the firm steps in and what the work consists of.
A cargo bound for a sanctioned port
A charterer discovers that the final consignee is on an EU list. The firm analyses the sanctions clause of the charter, organises suspension of the voyage and secures payment of freight.
A second-hand vessel formerly owned by a designated entity
The buyer of a second-hand vessel learns that the former owner was designated. The work bears on the traceability of title, on a possible freeze and on the compliance of the transaction.
“No Russia” clause and re-export
An exporter of ship parts must insert the no-re-export clause and handle a bank refusal. The firm drafts the clause and the compliance file.
Does your situation carry this risk? A first exchange allows us to measure it and to say how the matter would be organised.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How are breaches of international sanctions punished in France?
Breaches of restrictive measures are criminal offences, prosecuted alongside customs and financial penalties, and the exposure reaches both the company and the individuals who took the decision. The French customs code was recodified by the ordonnance of 8 April 2026, in force since 1 May 2026, so the former article numbering still found in older contracts and memoranda should be checked before it is relied on. At European level, Directive (EU) 2024/1226 of 24 April 2024 requires Member States to criminalise the violation of Union restrictive measures and harmonises the offences, which has tightened the exposure of operators and their managers.
Can a vessel be seized or confiscated for a sanctions breach?
Yes. Confiscation of the means of transport is among the measures available where a vessel has been used to carry goods or oil in breach of restrictive measures, and detention pending investigation can occur well before any conviction. In practice the commercial damage arrives first: refusal by the port State, loss of class or of flag, withdrawal of cover by war risk and P and I underwriters, and banks declining to process freight. Owners who discover the problem when the vessel is already alongside have very few options, which is why screening is done before fixing rather than afterwards.
What happens when underwriters invoke their sanctions clause mid-voyage?
Cover falls away for the affected voyage, and the vessel can find herself uninsured while at sea. The clause typically suspends or cancels cover to the extent that providing it would expose the insurer to a sanction, and it operates automatically rather than by negotiation. The immediate questions are whether the voyage may lawfully continue, whether alternative cover exists, and who bears the resulting cost under the charterparty. Because the clause is triggered by the insurer’s exposure rather than by the assured’s fault, a careful operator can still lose cover, which is an argument for checking the whole counterparty chain before loading.
How do successive sanctions packages affect a charter already under way?
Each new package can turn a lawful voyage into an unlawful one overnight, and most disputes concern who carries that risk. A well drafted charter contains a sanctions clause allowing the owner to refuse or discontinue employment that would expose the vessel, together with a mechanism for the consequences on hire and on costs. Where the clause is absent or weak, the parties fall back on illegality and frustration, which are narrow and uncertain. Wind down periods granted by the European Union are short and conditional, so the assessment has to be made quickly and the decision recorded.
What does a shipping company have to be able to prove?
That it screened the counterparties, the beneficial owners, the cargo, the vessel and the ports against the applicable lists before fixing, that it repeated the check when the position changed, and that it acted on what it found. In practice that means dated screening records, know your customer files, the contractual sanctions clauses, the instructions given to masters, and the internal escalation that followed an alert. The absence of documentation is what turns a defensible position into an indefensible one, because good faith cannot be reconstructed after the event.
Can a listing or a freezing measure be challenged?
Yes. A listing decision can be contested before the General Court of the European Union within the applicable time limit, national measures can be challenged before the competent national courts, and a delisting request can be addressed to the Council. Success depends on the evidence file relied on by the authority and on whether it supports the criteria invoked. Alongside the challenge, licences and derogations exist for specific payments and operations, and obtaining one is often more urgent for the business than the outcome of the annulment action itself.