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Owners of detained tanker slammed lawsuit as attempt to force the vessel’s sale

The owners of the 'Tinos I' said in a court filing that Vitol was ‘seeking to take advantage’ of the sanctions designations ‘to force the sale of the vessel and then buy it at auction’ The Court’s orders for arrest and attachment of the vessel should be vacated as these were prohibited without explicit authorisation from Ofac, the lawyers argued. The attachment was ordered by a judge earlier in August, arguing they were not permissible absent an authorisation from Ofac. They have also accused plaintiffs Vitol of seeking a forced sale of the vessel. The tanker has been stranded off Houston since arriving in Houston on its maiden voyage in June 2024. The tanker was sanctioned on April 22, 2025, as part of an Ofac action against the Iranian businessman Seyed Assadolah Emamjomeh and his network of companies in Iran, the UK and the United Arab Emirates. Emajome’s son, Meisam, was also designated. Th actionwas taken pursuant to the administration’s maximum pressure campaign and Executive Order (E.O.) 13902, which targets those operating in certain sectors of the Iranian economy. This action was in furtherance of Treasury’s implementation of National Security Presidential Memorandum 2 (NSPM-2), instituting a campaign of maximum economic pressure on Iran. The tanker was going to be sold under a license issued on May 20, by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. OFAC’s license provided for a number of transactions related to the vessel, including the sale of the ship, provided the net proceeds of the sale be placed into a blocked interest-bearing account at a U.S. financial institution. It was limiting the sale to the U.S. and the vessel’s entry into any new contracts with blocked persons. As an alternative, OFAC was also making it possible for the safe docking and anchoring of the vessel, emergency repairs, and environmental mitigation or protection activities. They are also permitting actions for the health and safety of the crew and the provisioning of the vessel, bunkering, pilotage, towing, and similar services.