Since late last year, Houthi rebels in Yemen have been escalating their attacks on commercial shipping routes in the Red Sea, firing Iranian designed anti-ship missiles and launching drone strikes on vessels carrying goods between Europe and Asia.

The number of container ships in the region plummeted in December, as shipping companies opted to use the much longer – and more expensive route – around the Cape of Good Hope.

Initially, and despite the growing risks, oil and gas tankers continued to use the Red Sea corridor.

But in recent weeks, this has all changed, with the number of vessels carrying crude or petroleum products having dropped to almost zero in the region, in the wake of ongoing Houthi assaults.

In today’s episode, GTR senior reporter, John Basquill, provides an update on the Red Sea crisis and explains the potential ramifications, both direct and indirect, for the commodities trading sector.

Host Felix Thompson is joined by senior reporters John Basquill and Eleanor Wragg, as well as reporters Jacob Atkins and Jenny Messenger, to discuss some of the most-read articles on the GTR news site this year.

Insurance-related court disputes, the impact of Basel requirements on the trade finance industry, efforts to ban fossil fuel support within the OECD Arrangement on Officially Supported Export Credits and the demise of yet another digital trade consortia, all feature in our 2023 review.

Host Felix Thompson is joined by reporter Jacob Atkins to discuss a recent Singapore court case involving JP Morgan and a coal trader, Kuvera Resources.

Last year JP Morgan successfully fended off a lawsuit brought by Singapore’s Kuvera Resources, with a judge finding that the lender was entitled to decline payment for a US$2.4mn shipment of coal because the vessel involved may have been Syrian-owned and subject to far-reaching US sanctions on the country.

But Singapore’s Court of Appeal on September 28 decided in Kuvera’s favour, ruling that JP Morgan did not prove to an acceptable standard of proof that the vessel was in fact under Syrian ownership at the time of the trade.

Instead, the court found the bank’s decision to reject payment was based on its own risk management calculations due to the presence of “red flags” that suggested a connection with Syrian entities.

In this episode, we delve into the reasons behind the judges’ decision, and why the proceedings have been described as a “test case” for the use of sanctions clauses in letter of credit transactions. All the facts of the case described by Jacob in this episode are taken from the written judgement.

Music credit to Kevin MacLeod for his track Loopster, taken from incompetech.com. Licensed under creative commons by attribution 3.0 license. Further music credit to Sunrise Drive by South London HiFi. Licensed under creative commons Attribution 4.0 License. Music promoted by CopyrightFree.org