Carnival, its Princess Cruise Lines plead guilty to second probation violation connected to 2017 criminal case
Carnival’s Princess Cruise Lines Ltd. pleaded guilty to violating its probation for environmental-related crimes in 2013 for the second time and agreed to pay another $1 million fine on top of a $20 million penalty two years ago, federal authorities said Tuesday.
Princess failed to establish an independent internal investigative office, which was a condition of the company’s probation, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. The plea agreement with the federal government requires Miami-based Carnival and its Princess business to establish instructions and deadlines to set up the internal investigations unit, among other things.
“Just like individual defendants, corporate defendants must also comply with court orders. They are not above the law,” U.S. Attorney Juan Antonio Gonzalez for the Southern District of Florida said in the statement.
In April 2017, Princess officials admitted to intentionally dumping oil-contaminated waste from one of its ships off the coast of England in 2013 and falsifying logs in order to cover it up. The cruise company had pleaded guilty to the felony charges and was fined $40 million. It remains the largest criminal fine for intentional pollution from ships, according to the Justice Department.
Carnival Corp.’s CEO, Arnold Donald, and Chairman Micky Arison signed the latest plea deal. The case is being prosecuted in the district court in Miami. Princess is based in California, while its parent company, Carnival, is headquartered in Doral.
Due to the 2017 conviction, Princess was on a five-year probation and all Carnival cruise company brands operating in U.S. ports had to come up with a federal court-approved environmental compliance plan that included independent audits and oversight from a court-appointed monitor.
Two years later, Carnival and Princess were convicted of six violations of their probation, including interfering with the court’s supervision of the cruise company, resulting in an additional $20 million fine.
In October 2021, an independent third-party auditor and the court-appointed monitor sent a letter to a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida saying that Carnival’s repeated failure to abide by the rules of its probation, “reflects a deeper barrier: a culture that seeks to minimize or avoid information that is negative, uncomfortable, or threatening to the company, including to top leadership.”
In Tuesday’s statement, prosecutor Gonzalez said, “The corporate defendant here ignored the court, choosing instead to thwart the compliance plan that was put in place to protect our environment. As this probation violation proceeding demonstrates, the government will not tolerate defendant’s blatant violation of court orders.”
However, a Carnival Corp. spokesperson on Tuesday said the company is “fully complying” with the federal court and “working in good faith through the course of probation to improve our internal investigations, which is the basis of the violation.”
“Our top priority is compliance, environmental protection and the health, safety and well-being of our guests, crew members, shoreside employees and the people in the communities we visit,” the spokesperson said.
This story was originally published January 11, 2022 at 8:47 PM.
