Iran International
The ruling to confiscate the National Iranian Oil Company’s last European headquarters is yet another sign of the country’s shrinking global footprint and deepening isolation.
A London appeals court ordered NIOC to surrender its landmark headquarters to satisfy a $2.4 billion claim by UAE-based Crescent Petroleum.
NIOC House, located on Victoria Street in central London overlooking Parliament and Westminster Abbey, was Iran’s last base in the Western hemisphere for managing oil contracts and sales. Brutalist in style, the 1975 building is valued at around £100 million ($125 million).
Iran lost its Rotterdam office in 2022, and Crescent may now seek additional Iranian assets in the UK or elsewhere, including frozen funds, though international sanctions could complicate enforcement.
NIOC still has the option to appeal to the UK Supreme Court—a process that could take up to two years.
The Calamitous Crescent
The Monday ruling upholds a 2021 decision ordering NIOC to pay damages, lost profits, interest, and legal costs, with interest continuing to accrue. A 2014 judgment had already confirmed that Iran breached a 2001 gas-supply contract with Crescent.
The 25-year Gas Sales and Purchase Contract (GSPC), signed under President Mohammad Khatami, envisioned Crescent processing up to 500 million cubic feet per day from Iran’s offshore Salman field and reselling it near the UAE border.
By 2005, however, NIOC halted deliveries, citing technical delays, and later accused Crescent executives of corruption before unilaterally terminating the contract. In subsequent proceedings, Iran failed to substantiate its claims.
Crescent began arbitration in 2009 under the International Chamber of Commerce. The ICC issued its first award in 2014 confirming Iran’s breach, and a final award in 2021 ordering NIOC to pay $2.4 billion. English courts later dismissed NIOC’s challenges.
In 2024, a UK court ordered the seizure of NIOC House, describing NIOC’s attempt to transfer ownership to the Oil Industry Pension and Welfare Fund as a “sham” maneuver to evade creditors.
Experts estimate the total cost to Iran — including legal fees and lost revenue from flared gas—at more than $7.25 billion.
Timeline
Reactions in Tehran
Iran’s state media framed the court ruling as “political interference,” linking it to sanctions despite the dispute predating them.
Former lawmaker Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh urged authorities to identify those responsible and “arrest those who make a fortune by exploiting their power and the nation’s assets.”
Political commentator Ahmad Zeidabadi lamented: “It is a shame that after 23 years, the people of Iran still do not know what happened, why the contract was terminated, and why the country must now pay such a steep price.”
For over two decades, hardliners and moderates have accused each other of wrongdoing and undermining the national interest over the Crescent deal.
But Crescent is not an exception in the Islamic Republic of Iran; it is the norm. And so would be the potential loss of NIOC House.
When Iran purchased the London building in 1975, it symbolized the country’s expanding reach in the global oil market. Today, Iran’s oil is traded through ghost fleets, and revenues flow through opaque networks tied to regime insiders.
NIOC House now stands as an emblem of Iran’s stunted growth and deepening isolation—the last remnant of an ambitious past, and a window into a despondent future.
“Iran’s stablecoin limits will not stop dollar demand — they will only drive it deeper underground,” a Tehran-based economist who did not want to reveal his identity told Iran International.
The Central Bank’s High Council late last month approved a $5,000 annual purchase limit per person and a $10,000 ceiling on total stablecoin holdings.
The rule, announced as the rial plunged to a record low of 1,170,000 per US dollar earlier this month, drew sharp criticism from Iranians using Tether and other digital currencies to protect their assets from geopolitical headwinds.
The slump was triggered by the UN sanctions which resumed late last month after European countries suspicious about Iran's nuclear activities activated the so-called snapback mechanism.
The rial stood slightly below 1,140,000 at the time this report was published.
Even a prominent government official criticized the move.
“A disaster is when policymakers with good intentions, but based on wrong reasons and ignoring evidence, make a decision. The result will be weakening governance, erosion of public trust, a threat to people’s assets and discrediting institutions,” Deputy Minister of Communications Ehsan Chitsaz wrote on X.
Crypto market endangered
Traders contacted by Iran International described the new ceilings as both impractical and punitive. “The government keeps tightening controls because it has no real answer for the collapsing rial,” said Farzad, a 29-year-old trader in Tehran.
“They call it regulation, but it’s just another way to shift the burden onto ordinary people. When markets tumble, traders like us will be trapped — unable to cash out or protect our savings.”
“They’ve also started deciding how much people can spend based on their job status — fifty billion rials if you’re unemployed, 200 billion if you earn a salary,” Parham, a 25-year-old in Tehran, said.
“These limits kill initiative and push everyone toward informal channels.”
Parham referred to another Central Bank directive last week that set tiered limits on rial transactions — 200 billion rials for wage earners, 50 billion for the unemployed, and five billion for inactive entities.
Manipulation risk
The new regulation and a concurrent media campaign were meant to manipulate prices, the economist said.
“The $5,000 Tether cap is not about stability; it’s a cover for manipulation,” he said. “They’re draining liquidity under the guise of regulation and trying to buy time while the rial keeps falling. Fear about frozen assets fuels panic, making people sell at a loss.”
Tasnim, a media outlet linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, reported that “thousands of addresses on the Tether network have so far been frozen and their assets effectively made inaccessible,” calling for tighter oversight of exchanges such as Nobitex.
Black-market growth likely
Other commentators say the measure will only feed a shadow economy. Saeed Reza Moradian of OTC Crypto Exchange warned that such limits “will lead to the spread of rented accounts.”
“A $5,000 annual Tether limit destroys the digital economy. People’s needs won’t disappear — they will just move to opaque and foreign platforms,” wrote a user called Sepideh on X.
Iran International has observed advertisements offering cash for renting national ID numbers, allowing others to exploit the $5,000 per person stablecoin quotas.
Central Bank officials insist the measure is needed to prevent capital flight. Asghar Abolhasani, Secretary of the bank's High Council said users have one month to comply. But crypto traders told Iran International the rule is unenforceable.
“You can’t police digital assets with outdated banking tools,” said Farrokh, a Tehran-based trader. “Once trust is gone, people won’t wait — they’ll take their money abroad in whatever form they can.”
Failing controls
The comments by people depict a widening gap between official policy and public behavior. Small traders and households that once relied on Tether as a hedge against inflation now face the choice of breaking the rules or watching their savings erode.
For many Iranians confronting another devaluation and the return of UN sanctions, the Central Bank’s rule represents yet another blow to financial autonomy.
Those who spoke to Iran International said the cap will narrow legal channels, amplify underground trade and further alienate citizens from a banking system which is already widely distrusted.
Located near the city of Kermanshah, Sarab Niloufar -- famous for its blue lotus flowers and migratory birds -- has turned into cracked earth after years of over-extraction of groundwater, repeated droughts, and unregulated farming, Tasnim reported on Tuesday.
Provincial authorities blamed excessive water use for crop irrigation, illegal wells, and reduced rainfall for the collapse of the lake’s ecosystem.
Soraya Ghorbani, deputy head of Kermanshah’s Department of Environment, said this week that more than half of the factors driving the crisis stem from “repeated planting of water-intensive crops and poor management of groundwater resources.”
She warned that even heavy rainfall would no longer be enough to restore the body of water due to severe shortage of its groundwater.
Experts say the drying of Sarab Niloufar mirrors a national trend of environmental decline.
A new satellite-based study shows that Iran is undergoing severe land subsidence across 106 regions covering about 31,400 square kilometers -- an area roughly the size of Belgium -- mainly due to excessive groundwater extraction for agriculture.
Iran’s water reservoirs have reached their lowest levels in decades -- with only 35% of dam capacity remaining, according to government data -- while 19 major dams are nearing depletion and three have already run dry.
Across the north, wetlands in Golestan Province have also shrunk dramatically after years of drought and dam construction, leaving vast tracts of land barren and driving away hundreds of thousands of migratory birds.
Environmentalists warn that the loss of these wetlands could turn fertile regions into new dust storm hotspots, worsening air quality and threatening nearby farms.
In western Iran, the crisis has both ecological and social dimensions. Once a key habitat and tourist attraction, Sarab Niloufar supported local livelihoods and served as a natural water reservoir.
Officials say its disappearance shows how climate change, mismanagement, and overuse are converging to push Iran’s fragile water systems toward collapse.
“Without immediate national action on sustainable agriculture, groundwater control and interprovincial water sharing, more wetlands will follow the same fate,” Ghorbani said.
Zanjani wrote on the social platform X that the UAE-based Crescent Petroleum had “not only seized Iran’s Oil Ministry building in London worth $125 million, but also confiscated $2.3 billion belonging to the National Iranian Oil Company held in Malaysia’s First Islamic Investment Bank.”
He added that the funds had been converted to euros and were awaiting transfer “to a Singapore bank,” while the company’s total claim against NIOC had reached $2.9 billion plus $13 million in accrued penalties.
According to Iranian media, the Kuala Lumpur High Court implemented a 2021 ruling by The Hague’s arbitration tribunal, ordering Iran to compensate Crescent over a failed 2001 gas supply contract for the offshore Salman field. The enforcement follows similar seizures of NIOC properties in London and Rotterdam.
On Monday, Iran’s state media also confirmed that a UK appeals court had upheld the confiscation of the NIOC House, a historic £100 million property near the British Parliament, ruling that it could be used to help satisfy Crescent’s arbitration award.
The judgment found that Iran’s attempt to transfer ownership of the building to another state entity was intended to evade debt recovery.
The Crescent case -- one of Iran’s longest-running energy disputes -- stems from a 25-year gas export contract. Iran withdrew from the deal in 2010, alleging unfavorable terms, prompting years of arbitration and legal challenges.
Once worth an estimated $13.5 billion, Zanjani made his fortune helping Iran bypass Western sanctions during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad through complex oil trading networks.
Zanjani, convicted in 2016 of embezzling $1.9 billion in oil revenues, had his death sentence commuted to 20 years after agreeing to help recover state funds abroad. Released last year, he has since rejoined Iran’s oil sector under government oversight, according to local media.
