Monaco shipping company admits US pollution charges, fined nearly €2m

A Monaco-based shipping company has been fined €1.84 million ($2.25 million) and one of its employees convicted in the US for discharging oil and throwing waste overboard off the Texas coast.

Sea World Management & Trading Inc. and the master of the vessel, the Sea Faith, were convicted of maintaining false and incomplete records related to the discharge of oil and rubbish from the tanker that was en route to Corpus Christi at the time of the offences, according to the Corpus Christi Caller Times.

Edmond Fajardo was sentenced to six months in jail and fined $2,000 for ordering crew members to illegally discharge oily waste on five separate occasions between March 10 and March 18, while oil cargo residues and machinery space bilge water were discharged directly into the ocean, according to the US Department of Justice.

The discharges were made without using pollution prevention equipment. Both the company and Fajardo admitted that the discharges were not recorded in the vessel’s Oil Record Book.

The company and Fajardo admitted also that he ordered crew members to throw plastics, empty steel drums, oily rags, batteries and empty paint cans overboard and into the ocean, the release said. None of those discharges were recorded, prosecutors said.

Sea World Management and Fajardo both pleaded guilty to the charges on Monday, February 26. The company was fined over two million dollars and will serve a three-year probation period during which all of its vessels doing business in US ports must implement a “robust” Environmental Compliance Plan, officials said.

The company claims on its website that it is committed “through continuous efforts to improve environmental performance in all areas required by the international regulations, laws and Company’s IMS towards a cleaner environment…”

“Sea World Management was set up in February 1990, in Monaco, to provide Ship Management expertise to a pool of clients including Ship Investment Companies, Banks and privately held Shipping Companies,” the company also says on its website.

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