Inequities in ship owner registration

Some countries maintain an open registry, allowing for foreign-owned vessels to fly their national flags, with a nominal or shadow national shipping company created to be the official owner of record. This makes it difficult to identify real owners or operations in order to make them accountable for all shipping operations. Ships and groups of ships may be registered in more than one country to evade regulations or secure preferential treatments. Flag states, that is those countries allowing open registration, often show little interest in basic regulatory actions and indeed may discriminate against countries ships they do not wish registered.