MSC Shipmanagement Fined $1.75 Million Over Illegal Oily Waste Discharges

MSC Shipmanagement Limited and the owner of the containership MSC Samira III have been ordered to pay a combined $1.75 million fine after pleading guilty to concealing illegal discharges of oily waste into the ocean.

The U.S. Department of Justice said MSC Shipmanagement and Hong Kong Spirit Shipping and Trading Limited each pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to two counts of violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS). Both companies were also sentenced to four years of probation.

The charges stem from pollution and recordkeeping violations aboard the MSC Samira III between June 2024 and January 2025, including the use of portable pumps and hoses to bypass pollution-control equipment and the presentation of a false oil record book to the U.S. Coast Guard in Philadelphia.

According to prosecutors, senior engine department officers instructed lower-ranking crew members between June and September 2024 to transfer oily bilge water from the vessel’s bilge holding tank into its sewage holding tank. The waste was then pumped overboard through the sewage system, bypassing the ship’s oily water separator.

Oily water separators are designed to prevent the discharge of bilge water containing more than 15 parts per million of oil, the limit established under international pollution regulations.

Prosecutors said the illegal discharges were not entered in the vessel’s oil record book as required.

The scheme later took another form. Between September 2024 and January 2025, senior engine department crew members allegedly manipulated the oily water separator by running fresh water through the system’s oil content monitor while oily bilge water was discharged overboard.

The practice allowed the vessel to make it appear that the discharge met pollution limits when it did not, according to the Justice Department. Those discharges were also omitted or inaccurately documented in the oil record book.

The violations came to the attention of U.S. authorities after the MSC Samira III called at the Port of Philadelphia twice in January 2025 and crew members presented the falsified oil record book to the Coast Guard.

“Foreign vessels that enter the ports of the United States and present false documents undermine our efforts to preserve our environment and enforce the law,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s Energy and Natural Resources Division. “We will vigorously protect the integrity of our port state control system against actors who put profit over compliance with the law.”

U.S. Attorney David Metcalf for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said the companies had “repeatedly cut corners and covered it up,” adding that operators that illegally discharge pollutants and falsify their records will be prosecuted.

Second Engineer Mikhail Tsurikov previously pleaded guilty to violating APPS in connection with the case and is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 10.

The investigation was conducted by U.S. Coast Guard Sector Delaware Bay and the Coast Guard Investigative Service.

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