News and Events

Earlier this month, MACN was delighted to be awarded the SAFETY4SEA Sustainability Award, sponsored by UMAR.

The winners of this year’s Awards were announced at a prestigious ceremony which took place on Tuesday 2 October, 2018 at the Yacht Club of Greece.

The awards focus exclusively on initiatives and individuals who foster Safety Excellence & Sustainable Shipping, following a combination of open nomination and audience-vote.

Presenting the award Mr. Thrasos Tsangarides, Group CEO, UMAR, said:

“The Maritime Anti-Corruption Network understands that our economic and technological growth often come at a cost. Ethical business practices are being tested and corruption is a major problem that costs trillions in bribes every year. It distorts competition, deters the free market and delays further development of social and economic growth. The answer to this centuries-old problem lies in developing corporate cultures with strong business values that understand that ethical behaviour and transparency actually add competitive advantages to organisations while enabling more trustworthy business relationships and lower costs.”

Accepting the award on behalf of MACN, Mr. Dimitris Balamatsias, DPA & HSQE Manager, Neptune Lines, stated:

“Corruption is a real threat to the people who work on our ships and it damages our business and reputation. Shipping is not alone in facing this enormous problem, a problem that is too-often excused as being too hard to solve: ‘it is the way things have always been done. However, in the fight against corruption the shipping industry has shown unparalleled leadership. The Maritime Anti-Corruption Network is now over 100 members strong. We have shown that shipping companies – working together – can be more effective in fighting corruption than any regulation or press expose.”

MACN would like to thank everyone who voted for us. This award is great recognition for the hard work and commitment of our seafarers, member companies, and partners.

The SAFETY4SEA award follows MACN’s receiving a High Commendation at the 2018 Seatrade Awards, demonstrating the growing international recognition of MACN’s efforts.

In 2015, MACN was the winner of the second annual TRACE Innovation in Anti-Bribery Compliance Award (IACA) for its efforts to create an industry-wide compliance culture through collective action.

MACN was delighted to welcome over 100 participants to the annual Fall Members Meeting in London on 3-4 October.

We were honored to have speakers from the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the UK Department for International Development (DFID) Unilever, and Boards of multinationals. We also heard from expert MACN partners including Soji Apampa and Guillermo Jorge.

The MACN Secretariat presented MACN’s new country strategy for collective actions, and members shared some inspiring front-line stories on successes in fighting corruption.

Thank you to all speakers and members for a great two days!

Save the Dates for 2019

MACN Spring Meeting
27–28 March 2019, Shanghai

MACN Fall Meeting
30–31 October 2019, Amsterdam or London

The Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN) is delighted to have been awarded the High Commendation for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at the Seatrade Awards 2018.

The Seatrade awards, which have been running for 30 years, recognize excellence and innovation across the maritime industry.

MACN’s Program Director, Cecilia Muller Torbrand, and MACN Chair John Sypnowich, were in London to receive the award.

The award follows a year of significant success for MACN in 2017.

Through its Collective Actions, MACN has inspired and delivered increased participation in the Suez Canal Say No campaign; developed a new regulatory framework for the dry-bulk vessel clearance process in Argentina, trained over 400 stakeholders, and open-sourced guidance to support implementation; enhanced container tracking in Indonesia; and delivered ethics training for close to 600 government officials in Nigeria.

Our anonymous incident reporting has continued to grow substantially. With over 19,000 incidents of corrupt practices reported to date, MACN has a strong platform to better understand the challenges and to engage with stakeholders, including governments, on shared solutions. MACN has also collaborated with other shipping organizations to address the issue of maritime corruption more broadly in the industry and with maritime regulators.

Last but not least, we now have nearly 100 companies in our network. Our collective voice and influence grows with our membership.

Argentina

The UKFCO has agreed to sponsor continued training in Argentina to secure transparency and integrity in vessels inspections in Argentina. The funding will ensure that 40 company risk managers receive onsite training on how to prevent risks arising from the new regulatory framework. 100 companies will also receive practical educational materials about the new regulatory framework and how to minimize corruption risks during a vessel’s inspections. MACN is happy to have received this backing from the UKFCO in Argentina. Fernando Basch of Governance Latam is joining the MACN Spring meeting to provide additional updates.

Nigeria

An MACN letter has been delivered to the Vice President’s office to secure continued commitment to tackle the operational challenges at a senior government level, and to ensure that an adequate number of government officials will attend the integrity training arranged for mid-March. The final training of government officials is taking place in Lagos in mid-March and is arranged by our local partner Soji Apampa, the Nigerian Shippers Council, and the Nigerian Anti-Corruption agency, TUGAR. The correspondence with the Nigerian government is available on Onehub—Collective Action—Nigeria. In March, MACN will kick off the final session on training government officials.

Vietnam

MACN Program Director Cecilia participated in meetings in London with a Vietnamese delegation established to improve the business climate in Vietnam (the travel costs for the delegation were funded by the UKFCO). Representatives included officials from the Vietnamese government and the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce. Cecilia presented on the trade barriers in Vietnam and this was well received.
Next steps: The MACN Secretariat is drafting a formal report to the delegation on the challenges seen in the ports and it will be shared with the membership before submission.

Suez Canal

Reminder: If you join the Suez Canal “Say No” campaign, please notify the MACN Secretariat (macn@bsr.org) so that we can follow up with companies in the campaign when we measure the impact of MACN’s activities.