Singaporean Shipping Company Pleads Guilty to Dumping Cover-Up
In pleading guilty, Unix Line admitted that crew members onboard the 16,408 gross-ton tanker Zao Galaxy knowingly failed to record overboard discharges of oily bilge water without the use of required pollution-prevention equipment in the vessel’s oil record book during a 2019 voyage from the Philippines to Richmond, California.
According to the plea agreement, the Unix Line-operated Zao Galaxy set sail from the Philippines on January 21, 2019, heading toward Richmond, carrying a cargo of palm oil. On February 11, 2019, the Zao Galaxy arrived in Richmond, where it underwent a U.S. Coast Guard inspection and examination.
During the inspection, examiners discovered that, during the voyage, a Unix Line-affiliated ship officer directed crew members to discharge oily bilge water overboard using a configuration of drums, flexible pipes, and flanges to bypass the vessel’s oil water separator. The discharges were then knowingly not recorded in the Zao Galaxy’s oil record book.
A federal grand jury indicted Unix Line on the charge on October 24, 2019.
A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for March 20.
The maximum statutory penalty for a violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships is six years’ imprisonment and a fine of twice the gross gain or loss derived from the offense.
Unix Line manages a fleet of approximately 42 chemical tankers as the primary ship management arm of MOL Chemical Tankers.
Earlier this month, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement was sentenced to pay a $1.75 million fine in Hawaii after pleading guilty to one count of maintaining a false and incomplete records, a felony violation of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, related to illegal discharges from on of its oil products tankers.
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