Trump Officials Dust Off 1800s Law to Seize Vessels as Wartime 'Prizes'

Maritime attorneys Allison Luzwick and Michael Frevola spoke with TradeWinds about a Texas federal court's proposed rules reimplementing prize law, a legal doctrine applicable to wartime vessel seizures that has gone unused since World War II. Enacted in the 1800s, prize law allows the U.S. government to take ownership of vessels captured as part of a military conflict, and the proposed rules from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas create a framework for evaluating whether seized vessels or cargo were lawfully captured.

In a client alert Allison and Michael coauthored on this topic, they highlight the important distinction between prize law and civil forfeiture law; under prize law, only a vessel's owner or secured creditor can make a claim, whereas civil forfeiture proceedings allow multiple other parties such as charterers and insurers to make claims. Michael told TradeWinds, "I think the Department of Justice and the current administration learned from the fact that these are messy claims" when turning to prize law and its narrower scope of potential claimants as another tool to put pressure on Iran.

Comments on the court's proposed rules were due October 23, 2026. While waiting for next steps, Allison highlighted that "nobody alive has ever adjudicated the prize law before, either from the government or in private practice," so "we're all going to be figuring this out together for the first time" if the proposals become operational.

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