MLAA Files Amended Complaint in Lawsuit Against MARAD. Suit Now Seeks MSP Operating Agreements, EMBARC Submissions, & SCCT Communications Between MARAD & Vessel Operators

New York, NY

By: MLAA

Yesterday MLAA filed an Amended Complaint in its first lawsuit against the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) and Maritime Administrator Ann Phillips seeking records via the Freedom of Information Act. 

MLAA’s original complaint in the case focused on MARAD’s refusal to turn over records related to incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault against USMMA students participating in the Academy’s Sea Year program. The original complaint also sought records related to MARAD’s response to Senator Maria Cantwell’s blistering October 2021 letter to MARAD that demanded answers to allegations of rape, rampant unchecked sexual violence, and oversight and policy failures posted on the MLAA website. 

The new Amended Complaint expands the scope of records sought from MARAD under the Freedom of Information Act. The Amended Complaint seeks, among other records:

1. All active Maritime Security Program operating agreements between MARAD and vessel operators,

2. All Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreements (VISA) between MARAD and vessel operators, 

3. All documents submitted to MARAD by vessel operators pursuant to new EMBARC standards,

4. All documents submitted to MARAD by Vessel Operators pursuant to MARAD’s failed and fake Shipboard Climate Compliance Team (SCCT) Criteria,

5. And all documents sent to Vessel Operators by MARAD pursuant to MARAD’s failed and fake Shipboard Climate Compliance Team (SCCT) Criteria.

Federal judge Hon. John G. Koeltl has been assigned to hear the case. Koeltl received his law degree from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He then served as an Assistant Special Prosecutor for the Watergate Special Prosecution Force and later made partner at the elite New York law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton. Koeltl was nominated to his seat on the S.D.N.Y. by President Bill Clinton in 1994.

MLAA is represented in the lawsuit by Attorney J. Ryan Melogy of New York firm Maritime Legal Solutions, PLLC. In addition to representing MLAA in its lawsuit against MARAD, Melogy also currently represents four victims of maritime industry sexual harassment and sexual assault in civil actions against shipping companies and in the victims’ related criminal and administrative proceedings against the perpetrators of the crimes and sexual misconduct.

MARAD will be represented in the lawsuit by attorneys from the U.S. Department of Justice, Southern District of New York.