Legal fallout: Altera Infrastructure accepts €700,000 fine for violating EU ship recycling laws

Despite initially contesting the fine, with a trial scheduled for the beginning of next year, Norwegian ship management company Altera Infrastructure has accepted the penalty of 8 million NOK (circa $720,048) for the illegal scrapping of two shuttle tankers Navion Britannia and Alexita Spirit on the beach of Alang, India, the Belgium-based NGO Shipbreaking Platform revealed.

Despite the European Union’s (EU) rules prohibiting the export of end-of-life ships from EU waters to non-OECD countries, the two tankers, having reached the epilogue of their operational life, were sold for dismantling at a beaching facility in India, the NGO said.

Beaching involves scrapping ships in the intertidal zone without containment – a practice linked to severe pollution, including metal contamination of sensitive coastal ecosystems. NGO Shipbreaking Platform also reminded that the workers themselves face ‘significant’ health and safety hazards during the process due to a lack of proper protective measures.

The incident regarding Altera Infrastructure’s malpractice happened against the backdrop of the forthcoming International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships (Hong Kong Convention)—set to enter force on June 25, 2025—which lays down requirements for secure and sustainable ship recycling and the disposal of hazardous materials.

Following a raid on Altera Infrastructure over four years ago, the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (Økokrim) issued a fine of NOK 8 million on June 10, 2020, to the ship management company in question for having sold the two vessels for scrapping in India.

At that time, according to Reuters, Maria Bache Dahl, acting senior public prosecutor with Økokrim, revealed that authorities had carried out a search of the office of Altera Infrastructure—formerly known as Teekay Shipping, following a March 2020 rebranding decision— in the southern city of Stavanger. Witnesses were then questioned and “potential evidence” was seized.

“The investigations led by the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (Økokrim) revealed that Altera Infrastructure chose to dismantle the ships in India,” Ingvild Jenssen, Executive Director and Founder of NGO Shipbreaking Platform, elaborated.

Reuters further reported that, in the aftermath of the raid, Altera confirmed in a statement that the ships were, in fact, part of their fleet and that they had been sold to the Indian yard for recycling in 2018 “in full compliance with the requirements and standards” of the Hong Kong Convention.

However, violations of both this convention, as well as of European and international laws that stipulate that hazardous waste, including end-of-life ships, cannot be exported from an EU/EFTA country to a non-OECD nation under any circumstances, were determined.

Once the incident saw the light of day, Altera claimed the intentions had been to retrofit the shuttle tankers. Yet, they sold Navion Britannia and Alexita Apirit, together with a separate tanker duo, Nordic Spirit and Navion Marita, to what is said to be “one of the most notorious” cash buyers, the Singapore-based Wirana Shipping, a scrap dealer specialized in the purchase of end-of-life vessels and known as a middle-man for the South Asian beaching yards.

“With the help of cash buyer Wirana, a scrap dealer already heavily fined in the Harrier case, Altera was able to sell the two tankers at a considerably higher price than what they would have obtained from selling to a sustainable ship recycling yard,” Jenssen explained.

In 2019, Norwegian authorities imposed a NOK 7 million fine on Wirana Shipping over the company’s role in a disputed dismantling case. Specifically, Wirana had attempted to export barge carrier Harrier (ex-Tide Carrier) to a scrapyard in Pakistan two years before that, where the ship was to be scrapped, in violation of Norwegian waste exports regulations that forbid exports of waste from rich to poor countries that do not have satisfactory waste management systems.

Reflecting on the ‘promptness’ of relevant Norwegian authorities, Jenssen underscored that the shipping industry, as a whole, has been “well aware” that international environmental laws, like UNEP’s Basel Convention, restricted the trade of end-of-life vessels to developing countries, putting the culpability entirely on those who “very knowingly” broke the law.

Nonetheless, she stressed that scrapping a ship on a tidal mudflat in South Asia has generally been more profitable for most, as opposed to doing it safely in a dry dock, for instance. Because of this, false accounts of further operational use or repair work were “not uncommon”.

“To see that Økokrim, as well as other European enforcement agencies, are not dupe and now hold ship owners accountable for illegal waste trade is encouraging,” she had accentuated in a June 2024 statement, just days after Økokrim decided on the exact fine to impose on Altera.

NGO Shipbreaking Platform has highlighted that Altera is not the first company to face these types of charges. In recent years, several ship owners and individuals have been held liable by EU Courts for violating both European and international waste laws.

The NGO reminded that Dutch shipowners, like Seatrade and Jumbo, paid similar fines. More precisely, all the way in 2018, the Rotterdam District Court sentenced the Groningen-based Seatrade for illegal exports of vessels sent for scrapping on beaches of South Asia, which also breached the EU Waste Shipment Regulation. The imposed fine was reported to range between €50,000 to €750,000.

Jumbo was fined €25,000, while its directors individually had to pay €2,500, for their involvement in the illegal export of an end-of-life ship to Turkey for recycling.

Furthermore, about four years ago, NGO Shipbreaking Platform reminded that the Greek shipping major Maran Tankers settled a compensation claim brought by the wife of a deceased Bangladeshi worker after the UK High Court confirmed that Maran Tankers likely did have an obligation to conduct due diligence when selling ships for scrap.

Commenting on the state of things, Jenssen argued that the existing limitations that enable the police to only take action on ships that either become waste in European waters or sail under an EU flag allow many owners to operate in “impunity”.

“EU laws should apply to all EU companies. The EU has an obligation to handle its own hazardous waste. The development of the capacity to recycle vessels off the beach and closer to home, in line with circular economy objectives, would furthermore satisfy the increasing demand for scrap for the production of carbon-accounted steel.”

The NGO Shipbreaking Platform recently also reported on a separate incident in Bangladesh concerning the oil tanker MT Suvarna Swarajya explosion, which claimed the lives of at least six people, and injured many more with some left in critical condition. The accident occurred at a shipbreaking yard in the district of Chattogram’s Sitakunda upazila.

The vessel, previously owned by the Shipping Corporation of India and then sold to cash buyer Best Oasis’ subsidiary Last Voyage DMCC, had eventually been bought by S.N. Corporation for dismantling.

Following the accident, Bangladesh authorities reportedly shut down S.N. Corporation’s yard ‘indefinitely’, halting all work on the tanker, pending an official investigation into the matter.

Among the proposals that the NGO Shipbreaking Platform as well as the Human Rights Watch, suggested was a recommendation for Bangladesh’s interim government to ‘promptly’ enforce the 2009 High Court order that halted the import of units for recycling until “satisfactory” provisions for worker safety were implemented.

That said, from the perspective of the ‘bigger picture’, it as of yet remains unclear whether more stringent regulations will have an adequate impact on illegal shipbreaking practices.