BusinessInmarsat responds: We do not sell telecommunications services to any Iranian entity
Shurat Hadin, a Tel Aviv-based law firm specializing in litigation against terror sponsors, claims mobile satellite company Inmarsat PLC provides prohibited guidance services to Iranian oil tankers and Iranian military vessels; Inmarsat says these claims are wrong: the company says it seeks to comply with all applicable sanctions laws and regulations, and that Inmarsat does not sell telecommunications services to any Iranian entity, or to any entity on the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control list of Specially Designated Nationals
Last Thursday we published a story about a letter Shurat Hadin, a Tel Aviv-based law firm specializing in litigation against terror sponsors, sent mobile satellite company Inmarsat PLC, warning it against providing prohibited guidance services to Iranian oil tankers and Iranian military vessels.
Inmarsat sent us the followsing statement:
“Inmarsat” (Inmarsat plc, Inmarsat Global Ltd., and Inmarsat Inc.) seek to comply with all applicable sanctions laws and regulations. Inmarsat does not sell telecommunications services to any Iranian entity, or to any entity on the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control list of Specially Designated Nationals.
This is the second time that Inmarsat has been accused of wrong-doing by Shurat HaDin. Last year, the lobby group contended in a U.S. law suit that Inmarsat was violating U.S. law by allegedly supplying telecommunications services to ships that allegedly were connected with Hamas.
Inmarsat pointed out the legal and factual difficulties in their case, and Shurat HaDin dismissed their case, before Inmarsat even had to respond formally on the merits.
Inmarsat was founded in 1979 as the International Maritime Satellite Organization, a non-profit, intergovernmental organization established by United Nations Convention to provide maritime communications for distress and safety of life at sea communications. The Convention required Inmarsat to make its services available for the “benefit of ships of all nations.”
In 1999, the intergovernmental organization was privatized, creating Inmarsat plc. As a condition to its privatization, Inmarsat was required to continue its “public service obligations” to “ensure the continuity of maritime satellite distress and safety communications services” for the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (“GMDSS”) established by the UN (see Public Services Agreement Between the International Mobile Satellite Organization, Inmarsat One LTD and Inmarsat Two Company, § 2.1.1). Inmarsat was again required to provide safety communications services for all ships “without discrimination on the basis of nationality” (Id. § 2.2). In turn, all cargo and passenger ships above a certain tonnage
