Iran's largest container company IRISL plans to continue its legal battle with the Council of the European Union by suing it for damages over sanctions, according to the legal counsel representing the Iranian line in the European Union-MNA reports.
Maryam Taher, the legal counsel of Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) in an interview with Lloyd's List (a London-based renowned weekly, providing shipping-related news), rejected the indictments against the company and said IRISL poised to sue Brussels for sanctions damages.
"IRISL was hit with financial sanctions by the EU illegal sanctions," Taher added.
"We are sure that the European Union has no evidence showing that IRISL is involved in Iran's nuclear program as EU and U.S. officials have claimed", she noted.
Last month the EU targeted over 30 IRISL holding companies as part of a wider sanctions campaign led by Western states aimed mostly at forcing Tehran to curb its civil nuclear energy program.
Sanctions have caused several IRISL vessels to be temporarily seized in foreign ports. The latest clampdown, on its affiliates overseas, pushed a major British shipping agency that used to represent IRISL, Johnson Stevens Agencies Ltd, into administration.
Previously, Mohammad Hossein Dajmar, IRISL's managing director announced, "Since the cancellation of P&I insurance coverage on the company's vessels by European and British insurers with the intention of grounding the company's fleet nationally and internationally failed, the European Union, in an unjust move, put on its sanctions list some of the companies that had commercial cooperation with the IRISL,",
'No proof of wrongdoing shows political nature of sanctions', he further said.
"This is in the face of the fact that the EU has not presented any proof or document signifying any wrongdoing by the IRISL for intensification of the sanctions. This goes to indicate the sheer political nature of the recent sanctions.
"We are currently pursuing the EU sanctions issue through the European Court of Justice and if the case follows a normal course, the outcome may very well surprise the sanctioning parties," Dajmar said.
Dajmar rejected accusations by EU and US authorities that IRISL might be involved in illegal arms shipments.