Page 8: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2026)

Legal Beat

LANDMARK LANDMARK

DEFENSE OF DEFENSE OF

FREEDOM OF FREEDOM OF

NAVIGATIONNAVIGATION © Andrei Antipov/AdobeStock

ITLOS Ruling Exposes Improper Seizure and False

Justi? cations in West African Maritime Incident

By Richard Gunn and Julia Cyrson, Reed Smith LLP n the largest penalty the International Tribunal for the authorities sent WhatsApp messages and a diplomatic note to

Law of the Sea (ITLOS) has ever levied, a Special Cham- Equatorial Guinea asserting a suspicion that the Heroic Idun ber ruled unanimously against Equatorial Guinea on May had attempted to load crude oil without approval and had raised

I27, 2026, ordering it to pay over €14 million in damages a “false piracy alarm” to evade interception. Nigeria requested to the Republic of the Marshall Islands for the unlawful seizure that Equatorial Guinea “track and arrest the vessel and hand of a commercial tanker and detention of its multinational crew. them (both vessel and crew) over to the Nigerian Government.”

The ruling in the M/T Heroic Idun (No. 2) case represents a Two days later, the Equatoguinean naval vessel Capitán Da- watershed moment for international maritime law, delivering a vid intercepted the Heroic Idun – not in Equatorial Guinea’s forceful rea? rmation of freedom of navigation. own waters, but in the EEZ of São Tomé and Príncipe, a third country. The warship threatened the use of force, including

Large-scale Maritime Seizure announcing that it had “orders to shoot,” and compelled the

M/T Heroic Idun, a very large crude carrier ? ying the ? ag tanker to divert to Luba Freeport on Bioko Island.

of the Marshall Islands and under charter, arrived near Nige- ria’s Akpo O? shore Terminal in August 2022 to load crude Nine Months of Unlawful Captivity oil. When the requisite loading authorizations were not yet in The vessel and its 26-person crew – comprising mostly Indian place, the master moved to a waiting position while charterers and Sri Lankan nationals – were detained in Equatorial Guinea arranged for the paperwork. for 92 days. In addition, the master was ? ned €2,000,132 by

On the evening of August 8, 2022, the vessel was ap- the Equatoguinean Ministry of National Defense for alleged proached by a small craft whose automatic identi? cation sys- violations of domestic merchant marine law, including sailing tem (AIS) was switched o? – a classic warning sign of pirate without authorization in Equatorial Guinea’s EEZ. activity in the notoriously dangerous Gulf of Guinea. Fearing Even after the shipowners paid the ? ne in full, which the an attack, the master declined to follow the craft’s instructions Mashall Islands claimed had no legitimate basis, the vessel and moved further o? shore. The vessel subsequently drifted and crew were not released. On November 11, 2022, they were into the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of São Tomé and forcibly transferred to Nigeria, where they endured further de-

Príncipe while awaiting clearances. tention until May 27, 2023, when a plea bargain agreement was

It later transpired that the unidenti? ed craft was NNS Gon- ? nally reached and the crew was released. In total, the innocent gola, a Nigerian navy vessel. On August 10, 2022, Nigerian seafarers were held captive for approximately nine months.

8 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • August 2026

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