Trident Seafoods Corporation has agreed to limit emissions of ozone-depleting substances from refrigeration equipment on its ships, under a proposed settlement with the US Environmental Protection Agency and US Department of Justice to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. The company will also pay a $900,000 civil penalty.
During a joint operation on 19 February 2019, with the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, the PCG arrested six crew members of a craft belonging to a marine service provider and another five crew members of a foreign-registered tugboat for illegal transaction of MGO at the sea off Jurong Island. The 11 men will be charged for criminal breaches.
Operators proceeding to ports in Gabon should note that all vessels are subject to PSC inspection and there is currently a long list of “deficiencies” which vessels should take care to try to rectify beforehand, or otherwise risk being fined, the London P&I Club warned citing information from correspondents TCI/Eltvedt & O’Sullivan.
Vessel operator Interorient Marine Services was convicted and sentenced in Louisiana for maintaining false and incomplete records relating to the discharge of oil from a tanker. Senior ship officers employed by the company aboard the Ridgebury Alexandra Z discharged oily waste into the ocean by flushing the vessel’s pollution prevention equipment sensor with fresh water.
A ship was arrested in Malta after a creditor obtained a Maltese court order claiming a judicial sale by auction of the ship in Jamaica was ignored. Jebmed SRL were first ranking creditors of the 22,988-tonne bulk carrier Bright Star, which at the time was called Trading Fabrizia, by virtue of a mortgage registered in Malta, where the ship was registered, in 2017. As the vessel went into financial distress while in Haiti and Jamaica, it was arrested by many creditors, such as Jebmed.
The US Coast Guard terminated the voyage of the 45-foot pleasure craft ‘Sea You Twerk’ with 14 passengers aboard Sunday in Biscayne Bay, Miami, after discovering multiple safety violations. With this respect, USCG reiterated potential fines for illegal charter vessel operations.
Brazil has closed a port terminal operated by miner Vale SA in Vitoria, in the southeastern state of Espirito Santo, Brazil. Specifically, Vitoria fined the company 35 million reais ($9.5 million) for throwing mining residues in the sea. Commenting on the development, Vitoria Mayor Luciano Rezende noted that ‘pollution cannot be justified by tax revenue any more’.
Shell Offshore, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, will pay $2.2 million for violating the Clean Water Act after spilling 1,900 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in May 2016. Then a subsea pipeline cracked at the company’s Green Canyon oil field. The new fine comes to add to $3.9 million the company agreed to pay in July 2018, for natural resource damage charges due to the spill.
British Authorities fined an insurance company and an advertising agency 135.000 pounds as they violated the GDPR regulation. Both of the companies belong to the same person. It was found out, after an investigation, that the person responsible mistreated their customers’ personal information for political purposes.
Seven men got arrested on January 29 for an alleged illegal transaction of 2.7 tonnes of marine gas oil at the sea off Pulau Sudong, Singapore. According to the police, the men were arrested during a joint operation the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore. Initial investigations showed that the three crew members had allegedly misappropriated 2.7 tonnes of marine gas oil without their company knowing.
