Pending litigation may affect Cunard with docking in USA

[msears101]

Before you move this thread, please put a sticky thread like in the Carnival section linking to the main "news" thread.  This board is relied upon for people researching cruises.  You should NOT sweep this under the rug. It should be in plain site in the Cunard Cruise forum.

 

Cunard cruises a subsidiary of Carnival and is currently facing a very real possibility of not being able to dock in the USA for a period of time.  If you have a Cunard Cruise reservation and are planning on visiting the USA or planning on booking, you should look at your option for trip insurance.  A lot of insurances will invalid after yesterday.  Read the fine print carefully.

 

All the Best.

[deck chair]

1 hour ago, msears101 said:

Before you move this thread, please put a sticky thread like in the Carnival section linking to the main "news" thread.  This board is relied upon for people researching cruises.  You should NOT sweep this under the rug. It should be in plain site in the Cunard Cruise forum.

 

Cunard cruises a subsidiary of Carnival and is currently facing a very real possibility of not being able to dock in the USA for a period of time.  If you have a Cunard Cruise reservation and are planning on visiting the USA or planning on booking, you should look at your option for trip insurance.  A lot of insurances will invalid after yesterday.  Read the fine print carefully.

 

All the Best.

What are you referring to?  Puzzled.

Deck Chair

[msears101]

8 minutes ago, deck chair said:

What are you referring to?  Puzzled.

Deck Chair

Sorry. I should have included the link.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2019/04/11/carnival-cruise-ships-docking-judge-threatens/3433559002/

 

Cunard is owned by Carnival.  All Carnivals brands would be banned, if they are banned.

[newjoisey]

highly unlikely ......if anything more fines....which will be re-guarded as a cost of doing business 

[deck chair]

1 hour ago, msears101 said:

Sorry. I should have included the link.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2019/04/11/carnival-cruise-ships-docking-judge-threatens/3433559002/

 

Cunard is owned by Carnival.  All Carnivals brands would be banned, if they are banned.

HI

 

Thanks for the link...I would think that only those brands who have been found to be in violation would be penalized by not being allowed dockage in US ports.  That would certainly hurt CCL, HAL and Princess especially. I am not reading that Cunard is involved. Overall,  what would that do to CCL shares if such penalties were imposed on the lines involved???

Deck Chair.

Edited April 11, 2019 by deck chair

[cruiseluvva]

Whichever brands are, or have been, involved, Carnival and so their individual brands, should and must, pay the price. This is shameful practice!

[Cats2010]

Removing plastic waste are a global task.

[BiggDawg]

16 hours ago, msears101 said:

Sorry. I should have included the link.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2019/04/11/carnival-cruise-ships-docking-judge-threatens/3433559002/

 

Cunard is owned by Carnival.  All Carnivals brands would be banned, if they are banned.

 

Won't happen until at least June, when the next hearing is scheduled.

 

As shameful as the practice was, it would be naive to assume that this was not happening all over the world, frequently.  There are always incentives for people to violate the laws and our sensibilities.

 

However, an outright ban is not likely.  No judge, who is competent enough to have reached the Federal bench, is unaware of the unintended consequences that a total ban would have on the cities, passengers, and payrolls involved.  The port cities, especially cities like Miami, would take the brunt of this penalty.  Those whose livelihoods depend on the ships, and secondarily the tourism would be devastated, and stranded passengers would be seriously penalized.  Together these impacts would be far worse than what the judge would get from Carnival Corp.

And she knows it.

And Carnival knows she knows it.

 

So, this will likely result in BIG HEADLINES and probably a BIG fine, but then business goes on.  Hopefully the fine will be large enough to get CCL to improve, and maybe enough clean up some of the mess that may have been caused, but not so large as to put the company that operates fully 1/3 of the world's cruise ships out of business.

 

JM 2c.

[DWhit]

On 4/11/2019 at 12:19 PM, msears101 said:

Sorry. I should have included the link.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2019/04/11/carnival-cruise-ships-docking-judge-threatens/3433559002/

 

Cunard is owned by Carnival.  All Carnivals brands would be banned, if they are banned.

Like with most newspaper stories, its very hard to get any real sense of what is going on from the story.  Several accusations are leveled, including "preparing" for upcoming audits.  Preparing for an upcoming regulatory audit is a normal business function and in no way represents any underhanded or illegal action.  A company would be silly not to prepare.  Most companies would conduct their own  internal audit from an internal independent organization prior to the regulatory audit.  You identifiy any shortcomings and begin corrective actions to fix existing problems and eliminate future problems.  That kind of thing is done all the time in businesses.  In fact, many times a regulatory audit will look at the effectiveness of the company's internal independent audit organization.

 

Obviously, a company's audit preparations have to be legal, and falsifying or eliminating required records are not legal actions.  People who participated in this kind of activity would be at risk of jail time, I would think.  Also if previously identified corrective actions are continuously and intentionally being ignored, then that company has a major problem.  

 

Cruise lines have many responsibilities, up to and including taking care of the lives of the people onboard their ships.  As the recent event with Viking showed, things can go wrong and people's lives can be threatened.  So like any major industry (airlines, chemical plants, etc.) cruise lines must prove themselves capable of identifying and taking effective actions for all regulatory (including safety) issues.

 

I feel pretty sure Carnival understands this fact.  But, like the newspaper, I really do not know. If I had to guess, I suspect the problems relate to some more complex gray area where the applicable regulations may be in question.  I have seen prior posts about regulations that apply to ships in ports or other specific locations (e.g. Antartica), but not applicable once they are in the open ocean.  Maybe its something along those lines.

 

 

[Underwatr]

 

You may not be aware that your font choice has poor legibility on many devices. Or maybe it's not important? 

[Calliope]

Judge Seitz clearly means business, and even as a Carnival Corp. shareholder I applaud her. Apparently the $40,000,000. fine originally levied against Carnival's Princess brand was not enough to dissuade the passenger shipping companies under the Carnival Corp. banner to straighten their act up to comply with her original order.  Judge Seitz has even ordered Carnival Corp. Chair Micky Arison and President Arnold Donald to be present at the June hearing. I imagine that they are in for quite a serious tongue lashing and their demeanor could influence her ruling at the time.

[Bigmike911]

This Judge is in Florida, which is part of the Eleventh District Court of Appeals. The Eleventh, unlike other districts the Ninth in particular does not like judicial over reach. Should she make a ruling to restrict Carnival ships from U.S. ports, you can bet that Carnival will get a stay from the Eleventh the next business day. 

[kmerlin14]

On 4/12/2019 at 10:33 PM, Calliope said:

Judge Seitz clearly means business, and even as a Carnival Corp. shareholder I applaud her. Apparently the $40,000,000. fine originally levied against Carnival's Princess brand was not enough to dissuade the passenger shipping companies under the Carnival Corp. banner to straighten their act up to comply with her original order.  Judge Seitz has even ordered Carnival Corp. Chair Micky Arison and President Arnold Donald to be present at the June hearing. I imagine that they are in for quite a serious tongue lashing and their demeanor could influence her ruling at the time.

What is the date in June? The Queen Elizabeth will be in Alaska then.

[bluemarble]

1 hour ago, kmerlin14 said:

What is the date in June? The Queen Elizabeth will be in Alaska then.

 

According to "www.cruiselawnews.com", the exact date for the June hearing hasn't been set yet. Quoting from that site:

 

"The Court ordered the parties to confer and file, by April 22, 2019, agreed dates to appear at a “Revocation Hearing” (to be held by June 24, 2019) at which time the Court will decide whether Carnival violated the terms of its probation and how it should be further punished."

[chengkp75]

On 4/13/2019 at 11:40 AM, Bigmike911 said:

This Judge is in Florida, which is part of the Eleventh District Court of Appeals. The Eleventh, unlike other districts the Ninth in particular does not like judicial over reach. Should she make a ruling to restrict Carnival ships from U.S. ports, you can bet that Carnival will get a stay from the Eleventh the next business day. 

There may or may not be any "judicial overreach", depending on what the penalty terms were in the original plea bargain that set up the probationary terms.  An outright ban on Carnival ships entering US waters may well have been spelled out as a possible punishment for continued violations while on probation.  While I doubt that there would be a total ban on Carnival ships, the judge may ban, at the very least, those ships shown to have had violations since the plea bargain, for very long periods of time, and if future violations happen, those ships could be banned permanently.  Every nation with a coastline has a black list of ships not allowed to enter their waters, for a variety of reasons.

[newjoisey]

if what i read is correct ,the judge is a shareholder ,she should not even be commenting on this case let alone hearing it .......either way i am not worried about my ship not coming to port ....it will be there 

[bobg529]

I know this is somewhat selfish on my part, but my upcoming sailing docks in Brooklyn on 5/24/2019 so I appear to be safe for now. 😉  I’m certainly not happy about this kind of behavior by any company, but I would bet that a decision of this magnitude would spend years being appealed before any such draconian measures were enacted.  Once the lawyers are done yelling at each other, wrists will be slapped, tongues will be clucked, and not much of anything will be accomplished.

[newjoisey]

20 minutes ago, bobg529 said:

I know this is somewhat selfish on my part, but my upcoming sailing docks in Brooklyn on 5/24/2019 so I appear to be safe for now. 😉  I’m certainly not happy about this kind of behavior by any company, but I would bet that a decision of this magnitude would spend years being appealed before any such draconian measures were enacted.  Once the lawyers are done yelling at each other, wrists will be slapped, tongues will be clucked, and not much of anything will be accomplished.

not selfish at all .......and spot on 

[Calliope]

On ‎4‎/‎17‎/‎2019 at 12:57 PM, newjoisey said:

if what i read is correct ,the judge is a shareholder ,she should not even be commenting on this case let alone hearing it .......either way i am not worried about my ship not coming to port ....it will be there 

I have not read that Judge Seitz is a shareholder.  I stated that I am, and that I applaud her strong message to 

Carnival Corp. to get their act together.

[bluemarble]

Here's an article on the Miami Herald website with some additional news about this topic.

 

Carnival Corp. reaches deal with federal prosecutors in probation violation case

 

No details about the terms of the deal. Apparently Judge Seitz will be reviewing the deal on June 3.

[bluemarble]

The terms of the deal have been released. Here is the first report I've seen about it.

 

Carnival will pay $20m over pollution from its cruise ships

 

I also see a report that Judge Seitz is turning the case over to Judge Ursula Ungaro.

[bluemarble]

Here's another update.

 

https://apnews.com/552514815a1846769c0b63d5b11f4a13

 

A key quote from this article:

 

"A Miami federal judge approved the settlement Monday after Carnival CEO Arnold Donald pleaded guilty on the company’s behalf to six probation violations related to illegal discharging of waste water, plastics and other harmful material."

 

Edit: I see the previous article I posted has also been updated to include this information.

Edited June 3, 2019 by bluemarble