Detention and Banning

Paris MoU (and Tokyo MOU with similar criteria): detention criteria based on the severity of deficiencies found; banning criteria based on the number of detentions in the last 24-36 months depending on the flag's position on the White/Grey/Black lists.

In the European Union those criteria are not a matter of Memorandum. They are Article 16 of Directive 2009/16/EC, and the durations are written down. Refusal of access is mandatory for a ship flying the flag of a State on the black list which “has been detained more than twice in the course of the preceding 36 months”, or flying the flag of a State on the grey list and detained “more than twice in the course of the preceding 24 months”. The order takes effect as soon as the ship leaves the port where she was detained the third time: there is no window to sail first.

The durations are progressive and not discretionary. A first refusal of access may be lifted “only after a period of three months” from the date of issue, and only where points 3 to 9 of Annex VIII are met. A second, “only after a period of 12 months”. A third may be lifted after 24 months. And Article 16(3) closes the progression: “Any ship not meeting the criteria … shall be permanently refused access to any port or anchorage within the Union”. Three months, twelve months, twenty-four months, then permanent exclusion.

There is a second banning, however, independent of this progression, and it catches people out. Article 21 — Follow-up to inspections and detentions — allows a ship with deficiencies that cannot be rectified in the port of inspection to proceed to the nearest appropriate repair yard, chosen by the master and the authorities. But if the ship sails without complying with the conditions, or does not call at the agreed yard, Article 21(4) imposes a refusal of access with no set duration: “such refusal shall remain in force until the owner or the operator has provided evidence to the satisfaction of the competent authority … that the ship fully complies with the applicable requirements of the Conventions”. It is not a term, it is a condition: you leave it by proving compliance, not by waiting out a calendar. Force majeure aside (21(6)). This is the case where a decision taken on board, not a detention history, produces the ban.

Mind the consolidated text. Directive (EU) 2024/3099 changes all three points just set out: the Article 21(4) refusal becomes a fixed twelve months from the date of issue, the black/grey/white lists become low / medium / high performance level, and Annex VIII is replaced in full, going from twelve points to nine, with cross-references becoming “paragraphs 3 to 6”. The transposition deadline is 6 July 2027: until then the national measures transposing the previous text apply. The consolidated version published on EUR-Lex already incorporates 2024/3099 as from 5 January 2025, because EUR-Lex consolidates at the entry into force of the amending act, not at its applicability.