The Palau International Ship Registry (PISR) says a tanker linked to oil shipments to North Korea was not registered under its flag at the time of the violation.
The 9,224-dwt Kingsway (built 1998) was one of four ships that are alleged to have violated UN Sanctions imposed on North Korea due to its nuclear weapons programme.
PISR says it only gave the Kingsway a provisional registration on 8 December while the ship was anchored in Taiwan, changing from the Panama flag.
The Kingsway has not left Taiwan since that date, PISR added. The registry said that it gave the provisional registration only after a vetting process in which the vessel was checked against UN and US sanctions list. It did not appear on any of those lists.
Equasis lists Bunker's Taiwan Group as registered owner of the vessel, which had the ex-name Billions. ClassNK is the ship's class society. South Korean officials have linked a Taiwanese charterer known as Billions Bunker Group as owning the cargo aboard some of the vessels suspected of oil smuggling.
"Once these procedures had been processed the ship then became part of the Palau fleet," PISR chief executive Panos Kirnidis said in a statement. "The suggestion that under the original name of M/T Billions 18 the vessel allegedly broke UN sanctions while flying the Palau flag is totally untrue. As stated above, at that time it was registered with the flag previous and not that of Palau."
