The US is poised to use the same strategy to enforce IMO 2020 that it used to go after seafarers and shipowners in the “magic pipe” pollution cases of years past.

A combination of generous ­incentives for whistleblowers and court precedent saw the US Coast Guard (USCG) and the Department of Justice levy criminal charges when a ship dumped oily bilge ­water anywhere in the world, within US waters or not.