Dutch prosecutors have fined the company that built Jeff Bezos’ $500 million superyacht after discovering that it had used teak wood from Myanmar in violation of European laws, according to the Dutch newspaper NRC.
On Nov. 26, the Netherlands Public Prosecution Service imposed a $157,000 fine on Oceanco for using the “wrong timber” during the construction of the Koru which, at 417 feet long, is likely the largest and most expensive yacht ever built in the Netherlands, NRC reported.
Following a two-year investigation, prosecutors accused “a Dutch yacht builder” of failing to investigate the origin of the wood used in some of the yacht’s furniture and finishings, which was purchased from an unnamed Turkish woodworking company. “It is therefore no longer possible to determine whether this wood was legally or illegally felled,” prosecutors said in a statement. Reporters at NRC, a partner of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, confirmed the company was Oceanco, which specializes in luxury yacht construction.
Oceanco acknowledged that it failed to comply with the European Timber Regulation, but said it “never intended” to do so, according to the prosecutors’ statement. The company “acknowledges the importance of the EUTR legislation and deeply regrets that this has happened,” it said.
The so-called EUTR, which will soon be replaced by a new law covering seven commodities linked to deforestation, bans the importation of illegally harvested timber and derived products into Europe, and requires companies investigate the origins of timber products before placing them on the market.
Last year, Deforestation Inc., a cross-border investigation by ICIJ with 44 media partners, documented how the law had failed to stop the timber trade from Myanmar as Western companies exploited loopholes and lax controls to import teak from the South Asian country, where exports of local natural resources help finance the military regime.
Myanmar teak is a particularly durable type of wood used for high-end architecture and yachts. Even though exports plunged since the 2021 military coup, the Myanmar government reported making $67.8 million from timber exports between April 2023 and March 2024.
In response to the coup, in 2021, the United States and the European Union imposed sanctions on the state-owned timber monopoly. As early as 2017, EU regulators began recommending member states stop importing timber from Myanmar due to corruption and illegal logging concerns.
To bypass stricter controls, some European companies have used intermediaries in Singapore, Thailand and other countries that do not restrict the trade of Myanmar timber, ICIJ found.
As part of their investigation, the Dutch prosecutors found that Oceanco had purchased the teak used in the deck of the Koru from a German trader that may not have met the requirements of the EUTR. German authorities were informed about the case, the prosecutors’ statement said.
In 2019 Oceanco decided that it would no longer use Myanmar teak in new orders. The order for the construction of the Koru predates that, NRC reported.
Correction, Dec. 2, 2024: An earlier version of this article misstated which teak products on the superyacht Koru led to the Dutch fine. It was some of the teak furniture and finishings, not the deck.
