Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

National Iranian Tanker Company has been once again included in the list of sanctioned Iranian entities by the British government.

This has been announced through an update on the status of the anti-Iran sanctions by the UK Treasury.

The British government has also announced that it has returned the name of Iranian businessman Gholam Hossein Golparvar to the list of sanctioned Iranian individuals.

Britain’s decision came as the European Union re-imposed sanctions against NITC and Golparvar on February 12.

An EU working group decided to add the NITC to the sanctions list again even though an EU high court had ruled last year against blacklisting the company.

The EU’s second-highest court ruled in July 2014 that there were no grounds to blacklist the NITC after it contested the designation. The EU General Court had also annulled sanctions against Golparvar and some other Iranian businessmen in December 2013, saying the listings were legally faulty.

NITC - a major transporter of Iran's oil - contested the EU's original blacklisting last year, arguing that the firm is privately owned by Iranian pension funds. It has denied any links with the Iranian government or with the Revolutionary Guards.

At the beginning of 2012, the U.S. and EU imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.

In October 2012, EU foreign ministers reached an agreement on another round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

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