Black lists pervade various areas, and shipping is no exception. The number of unreliable shipping companies has increased during the crisis.

Large groups on the list

Shipping companies have even listed ships are inconvenient for sailors to work on.
In Eastern European countries, such lists are generally available to the public. Except for being called “black lists”, they are referred to as the lists of ships of problematic companies.

The Western European countries keep those lists classified and shared only among the seafarers’ recruitment companies.

The official website of Seafarers’ Union of Russia has published lists of ships, whose owners are not accountable to their crews or the vessels are seized. There are 24 ships on the list.

Some of the vessels fly the Russian flag. Most of the vessels had been flying the flags of low-cost countries such as Panama, Guatemala, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, and Sierra Leone. Those ships, blacklisted as flying low-cost country flags, are mostly owned by Russian companies.

At the entry to the Russian state-owned company “Arctic Shipping Co.” there’s a note saying that all its vessels are problematic. Several of the company’s ships had been trapped in China. Once they were put in repair, it became clear that there was no money. The seafarers were left starving in China.

In order to pay its seafarers, the company had to sell 9 of 16 vessels. Even after having sold its ships, the company is still regarded as unreliable and is added to the blacklists.
Another unreliable company that is added to the list is “Easwind”. It had up to 50 sub-companies. All its vessels are listed as problematic. Managing 105 ships in the past, the refrigerator shipping company goes bankrupt. The reason why “Easwind” is put on the list of Russia’s problematic companies is that it employed a number of sailors through employment agencies in the country.

On the whole, the peak of unreliable shipping companies in the eastern Baltic region was 10-15 years ago. Then, following the collapse of large fishing companies, vessels would be lost in African ports. There have been cases where seafarers from Klaipeda would spend six months or longer on such ships without food or fresh water, waiting for their salaries.

There have been several ships trapped in Klaipeda port as well, where crews from Russia and Ukraine would be half-starving.

Lithuanians among the unreliable ones

”We can provide seafarers with information about any unreliable shipping company in the world. They only need to know the name of the company that they intend to work for. Data on corrupt vessels and companies are stored in ITF system”, the Chairman of Lithuanian Seamen’s Union Petras Bekeza said.

He argued that it was not the “black”, but the sub-standard ship lists that were being made. The ITF's black list includes the Lithuanian company “Passat”. It is not accountable to its seafarers. The case is pending in courts. According to P. Bekeza, it is prepared to seize the company’s ships.

The ITF system also includes several one-ship Lithuanian companies. They came to be known when ships in various ports were being seized during the crisis. There are shipping companies that register their offices in apartments or private homes.

According P. Bekeza, information about unreliable shipping companies is provided to ITF network by inspectors in the regions. Working together with state inspectors, they monitor whether the sailors are well provided on boards, what their social guarantees are, and whether the companies comply with agreements of the Paris Memorandum on maritime safety.

A lot of information on various violations is provided by seafarers that come to the Seamen‘s Union.

“We hear seafarers’ stories about precarious employment agencies. Some of them take money, which is against the law. There are cases where the documents are filled in improperly”, P. Bekeza noted.

Information about the precarious seafarers’ employment agencies is also being gathered in the ITF system. This is not a system for the public use. The access passwords are only known to ITF inspectors. However, having submitted specific requests, the seafarers are able to access the information.

According to P. Bekeza, the information about unreliable ship owners, seafarers' employment agencies is exchanged with maritime unions in Latvia and the Russian Kaliningrad region. Sailors from Kaliningrad often call to the Lithuanian Seamen’s Union. When trying to find a job through Lithuanian seamen’s employment agencies, the Russians are interested in credibility of some companies.

Companies that are avoided

Due to raging piracy, the blacklists include more and more risky shipping countries. Such countries as Somalia, Nigeria, Congo, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Angola, Guinea, and Gambia are considered unreliable.

In some of those countries exists not only common, but the so-called state piracy, when the vessels are detained for no apparent reason, and the “fines” are equivalent to the ransom itself.

The scheme is as follows: the authorities agree with a local company that receives the cargo to engage in financial dispute with the shipper or the cargo transporting company. Then, as if legally defending the interests of the local company, the government “abuses” the foreign company.

However the country that is engaged in state piracy on the highest level is not one single country in Africa, but Venezuela in South America.

Here, in 2007, was arrested a 38-thousand-ton deadweight bulk carrier “B. Atlantis”. It allegedly carried 125 kilograms of drugs. It was not only that two Ukrainian crew members were sentenced. A 2-million U.S. dollar value carbon loaded ship had been seized after three years in detention.

In March this year, the crew of the bulk carrier “B. Atlantis” protested against the Venezuelan oil transportation to Belarus via Ukraine. They hold that the drugs had been “slipped” and that the captain and his second assistant were held in Venezuelan prison illegally.

The international maritime community believes that this is a typical case of state piracy in the country which takes advantage of its judicial system.

There may be many more similar cases in Venezuela. The Venezuelan Government has adopted a maritime code, implementing much stricter conditions than the documents of the International Law of the Sea. A number of shipping companies began to avoid sending their ships to Venezuela.