Dutch court puts freight forwarder under spotlight in Iran exports case
A Dutch freight forwarding company has found itself at the centre of a legal battle over the reach of international sanctions, after the Amsterdam Court of Appeal scrutinised its role in shipping aircraft engines to Iran. The case involves Air Cargo Consultants BV, which since 2018 had arranged eight shipments of engines later deemed dual-use, according to the Lexology.be legal news resource. At the time of export, those items were not prohibited under EU law. But in October 2024, a ninth shipment was intercepted by Dutch customs after new rules came into force tightening restrictions on transfers to Iran.
The blocked shipment prompted Air Cargo Consultants to disclose all nine exports to U.S. authorities, including the Bureau of Industry and Security and the Office of Foreign Assets Control. That move highlighted the tangled intersection of American and European regimes: while U.S. sanctions cast a wide net over dealings with Iran, the EU only restricted certain categories of goods until its Regulation 1529/2023 expanded the prohibitions. The company’s disclosures raised the question of whether it was navigating U.S. rules in violation of the EU’s Blocking Regulation, which forbids EU businesses from complying with extraterritorial American sanctions.
Dutch prosecutors ultimately opted not to bring charges, issuing instead a formal warning that any further breaches would result in prosecution. Even without a conviction, the case has sharpened debate in the Netherlands about how freight forwarders should respond to overlapping regimes that leave them vulnerable whichever way they turn. For EU courts, the matter goes to the heart of whether logistical support companies are bound only by European export controls or must also weigh the risks of angering Washington.