Carnival's Princess Cruise Lines agrees to plead guilty to seven felony charges

Carnival's Princess Cruise Lines agreed to plead guilty to seven felony charges in the matter of deliberate pollution of the seas and attempts to cover it up.

Carnival Cruise Line, the largest cruise operator from Port Canaveral, operates three ships, Carnival Valor, Carnival Magic and Carnival Victory for cruises throughout the year to the Bahamas and Caribbean.

With Carnival Sunshine also sailing seasonally from the port each year, the cruise ships account for over 650,000 cruise passengers from the port, more than any other cruise line.

Princess would pay $40 million penalty, the largest-ever criminal penalty involving deliberate vessel pollution. It would also plead guilty to charges related to illegal dumping of oil contaminated waste from the Caribbean Princess cruise ship.

The plea agreement was announced today by assistant attorney general John C Cruden  for the Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division and US attorney Wifredo A Ferrer for the Southern District of Florida in Miami, Florida.

Under the plea agreement with Princess, cruise ships from eight Carnival cruise line companies (Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America Line NV, Seabourn Cruise Line Ltd and AIDA Cruises) would be under a court supervised Environmental Compliance Program (ECP) for five years. The ECP would require independent audits by an outside entity and a court appointed monitor.

According to commentators, the fine levied raised the issue of what cruise executives knew about the illegal dumping of oil-contaminated waste from the Caribbean Princess cruise ship and the other illegal practices which happened on the Star Princess, Grand Princess, Coral Princess and Golden Princess.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) pointed out, this is not an isolated case involving a rogue ship employee. The criminal misconduct spanned an  eight year period from 2005 to 2013 (involving the Caribbean Princess) and involved several other cruise ships as well.

The DOJ said, the illegal conduct included not only the "magic pipe" to circumvent the oily water separator on the Caribbean Princess but involved other illegal  practices on the Caribbean Princess as well the Star Princess, Princess Cruises Caribbean Princess Grand Princess, Coral Princess and Golden Princess.