Maritime software provider Sea has launched a new compliance solution to help customers navigate the regulatory landscape for freight and avoid sanction breaches.
Sea’s new Vessel Compliance Management solution enables customers to complete vessel screening and ensures governance, compliance, and the mitigation of risks in chartering processes.
In a study conducted by the company this month, almost half of users on its platform – or 47% to be exact – found that workflows are negatively impacted by sanctions while some 37% said that they were fully confident in navigating sanctions.
With sanctions currently in place across several regions and entities, breaches pose serious financial and reputational risks to businesses. Sanctions have become a major issue for shipping as the number of vessel-related sanctions has leapt by 380% in the 2020s so far, according to London Stock Exchange Group’s World-Check.
In the space of the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, for instance, the number of sanctioned vessels around the world leapt by 43%.
Currently, around 69,000 individuals and entities are sanctioned globally. World-Check data shows that as of January 2024 some 12,000 entities – comprising companies, individuals, and specific vessels – have been subjected to vessel-related sanctions, up from around 2,500 in January 2020.
Sea claims that the new solution will help businesses navigate compliance complexities as well as conduct automated screening against various customisable parameters such as vessel ownership, management, dark patterns, port state control, and suspicious behaviour.
Also, it enables real-time compliance monitoring which enables charterers to keep on top of rapidly changing compliance and sanctions regulations. Alongside the provision of reliable sanction and compliance integration, an audit trail is provided to evidence compliance through document management.
