The United States plans to resort to 19th-century laws to legalize the seizure of Iranian oil tankers, Bloomberg reports.

The U.S. Department of Justice wants to “activate a long-dormant naval court” to make it easier to seize Iranian vessels and their cargoes as “U.S. prizes.” The initiative is intended to increase pressure on Tehran and partially offset the costs of the conflict.

The main venue could be the federal court of the Southern District of Texas. Near the Port of Houston is the largest petrochemical complex in the United States, where large volumes of confiscated oil could be stored.

❗️ “Prize courts” existed in the 18th–19th centuries and allowed states to officially turn captured enemy ships and cargoes into their own property. In the United States, they were last used during the Spanish-American War of 1898.

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