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EU re-imposes sanctions on Iranian oil tanker firm

European Union governments agreed to put the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC), Iran’s biggest tanker firm, back on a list of sanctioned firms. The EU’s second-highest court ruled last July there were no grounds to blacklist the NITC after it contested the designation, but the EU moved to re-impose sanctions on tighter legal grounds. The decision to put the tanker firm back on the sanctions list was taken by an EU working group on Thursday. The regulation will be published in the EU’s Official Journal on Saturday. NITC – a major transporter of Iran’s oil – contested the EU’s original blacklisting last year, arguing that the firm is privately owned by Iranian pension funds. It has denied any links with the Iranian government or with the Revolutionary Guards. A copy of an EU letter to the NITC’s lawyers, seen by Reuters, said the EU disagreed with their arguments that the NITC did not provide financial support to the government of Iran and therefore should not be sanctioned. “You acknowledge that NITC’s shareholders are entities providing pensions and other social benefits, and social security is a responsibility of the Iranian government,” the letter said. The EU had therefore decided to include the NITC again on “the list of persons and entities subject to restrictive measures”, or sanctions, it said.