Taiwanese container shipping line, Wan Hai Lines, has announced large fines and other costs for shippers whose container load declarations are inaccurate, as part of a crackdown on maritime crime that has bedevilled the industry for decades. For hazardous cargo the fine will be $30,000 per container and $20,000 for non hazardous.
Container load discrepancies are widespread, despite an IMO compromise in 2013 on making weighing containers mandatory, a watering down that infuriated various governments and interested marine bodies . The beaching of the MSC Napoli container ship off the Devon coast in 2007 showed the breathtaking scale of fraud involved that also imperils ships, seamen road safety and the environment. Britain's Marine Accident Investigation Branch found that 20% of all deck containers on board the ill-fated ship were three tonnes heavier than their declared weights and in one case was 20 tonnes.
Such discrepancies may have been partly due to many packers and shippers not having the facilities to weigh containers at their premises but the incentive to fiddle is huge. By deliberately under declaring container load weights shippers can minimise import taxes calculated on cargo weight, but it also allows overloaded containers to keep declared weights within limits imposed by road and rail transportation. Container shipping lines are also swindled. Other container lines will doubtless follow suit so shippers and packers should treat this as a warning shot across the bows.
The ill-fated container ship, Napoli, beached on a Devon coast after a storm that exposed arguably shipping's greatest fraud.
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