News / MSC hit with $22.7m fine for bad billing behaviour

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MSC may have been hit with a whopping $22.7m fine by the US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), but the consensus is that for carriers “raking in billions”, the risk, and size, of penalties the regulator can mete out are insufficient to stop malpractice.

Justifying the fine, the FMC pointed to three breaches of the Shipping Act: failing to publish fees for non-operating reefers (NORs); overcharging its customers on detention & demurrage (D&D); and wrongfully billing customs agents for D&D.

On the first point, the FMC “held that the factual record indicated the overcharging happened in about 23% of all NOR bills during 2021. Therefore, the FMC concluded MSC’s billing was not merely the result of a mistake but rather it constituted an unreasonable practice”.

That decision overturned an administrative law judgement that had accepted the breaches in reference to both the wrongful charging of customs for D&D and overcharging on D&D, but had suggested the NOR bills were made in mistake.

At $22.7m, it marks one of the largest fines handed out by the US regulator, but one dwarfed by the $63m penalty the FMC called on an administrative law judge to deliver in 2024 to the world’s largest containership operator – a decision MSC is continuing to fight.

However, while welcoming the FMC’s willingness to act against box line behaviour, sources in the US shipping scene have been left unimpressed with what they see as “too little, too late”, contending the fines are not steep enough to dissuade carriers from continuing.

One source described the fines as “still a drop in the ocean for container lines,” telling The Loadstar that “these companies rake in billions”.

Sources argue that in risk versus reward terms, it falls very much into carriers’ laps, with the amounts available through underhand D&D practices measured in millions, as customers face “prohibitively expensive” costs to bring a claim.

“You’re not going to spend $20,000 on legal fees to get $5,000 back for Covid-era bullshit,” one source said, adding that carriers were being very open that they are just waiting out the two-year statute of limitations to reduce what they have to pay out.

The source noted that, in an endeavour to fix this discrepancy between cost and claim, the FMC introduced its charge complaints process, but despite it having “congratulated itself on being so amazing with the new charge complaint process”, that process was “very flawed”.

For some of the bigger shippers, there is hope the FMC will pay off with Cornerstone Brands and QVC seeking $18.1m from Ocean Network Express and Yang Ming facing a $14.7m suit from discount retailer Dollar General for failing to meet minimum volume commitments.

Lodged in the second half of 2025, they are nothing when compared with the $37m plus sought by Bed, Bath and Beyond’s administrators from OOCL – the biggest claim since the passage of the bipartisan Ocean and Shipping Reform Act (OSRA) in mid-2022.

Indeed, OSRA has provided significant work for the FMC, which has heard more than 50 cases against container lines and logistics companies since, with the amount of money cumulatively now surpassing the $100m mark.