Bunker Holding charged with breaching Syria sanctions

Marine fuel trader Bunker Holding has been charged in Denmark over the sale of jet fuel that ended up in Syria.

The Danish state prosecutor for serious economic and international crime (SOIK) has charged the firm and its subsidiary Dan Bunkering with selling jet fuel to Russian entities, which then sold the fuel on in contravention of EU sanctions on Syria.

SOIK, which did not name the companies, said 172,000t of jet fuel was sold in 33 transactions between 2015 and 2017. The total value of the trades was just over $100mn.

Bunker Holding said it is "surprised" that SOIK has brought the charges, and said that after an international investigation it could find no cases of anyone being aware EU sanctions could have been breached.

"We have not supplied fuel to companies included in the EU sanctions list at the time of our business dealings with them," it said, adding that

it has been unable to enter a proper dialogue with Danish authorities and said that no "red flags" were raised by anyone over the fuel trades until now.

Bunker Holding, based in Middelfart in Denmark, is the world's largest bunker supplier. Revenue in its last financial year was nearly $11bn.

By George Collard