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US may revive prize law to speed sale of captured Iranian oil
The Justice Department and Pentagon are considering a wartime-style process that could move disputes away from civil forfeiture, with proceeds directed to the US Treasury.
The US government is exploring bringing back a largely dormant wartime legal framework, prize law, to handle Iranian oil and ships captured in connection with its blockade, according to Bloomberg.
The approach would use court proceedings to determine whether seized vessels and cargo can become US property, a mechanism that fell out of common US practice after the 19th century and has been dormant since World War II.
The administration is reportedly seeking a more practical way to deal with complications from the government’s current reliance on civil forfeiture, which can become slow and involve competing claims from shipping companies, creditors, and other parties.
Bloomberg reports that Houston is being considered as a central venue for these cases, with the Southern District of Texas positioned near a major port and within the country’s large concentration of petrochemical infrastructure to receive and store substantial quantities of crude.
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