ABS, DNV, RINA Join Anti-Corruption Network MACN

Class Societies Bring New Weight to Anti-Corruption Effort

The American Bureau of Shipping, DNV and RINA have announced they are joining the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN), marking the first time classification societies have entered the organization. According to a report by Maritime Executive, the move follows a vote by MACN’s general assembly in April to open membership to class societies, and the three are the first to take up that option.

MACN has traditionally focused on curbing facilitation payments — small unofficial gratuities such as cash, food or cigarettes demanded by local officials — that have long shadowed interactions between ships’ crews and port authorities in certain regions. In more serious cases, seafarers face outright bribery demands or the threat of fabricated enforcement actions designed to delay vessels unless payment is made. MACN estimates that this kind of corruption inflates transport costs by around 15 percent globally, with a total estimated economic burden of roughly $160 million a year — costs that ultimately get passed on to cargo owners and charterers or absorbed by shipping companies themselves.

What MACN’s Members Actually Do

With more than 200 members, MACN operates by pooling intelligence and coordinating pressure against corrupt practices. Its activities include training crews to recognize and report improper demands, logging incidents of attempted corruption, sharing port-specific risk intelligence among members, and flagging recurring patterns to local authorities so that action can be taken. The underlying strategy is transparency: making petty corruption visible and costly enough, reputationally and operationally, that it becomes harder to sustain.

Why Class Societies Are Joining Now

MACN said in its statement that classification societies bring technical expertise, global reach, and regulatory influence that can strengthen the network’s broader integrity mission. At the same time, class societies themselves face their own integrity exposure, particularly around regulatory and survey decisions made in high-risk operating environments where pressure or inducements could theoretically be applied.

ABS Chairman and CEO John McDonald framed the decision to join in terms of trust, noting that confidence in the systems and standards underpinning global trade depends on integrity, and that MACN membership offers a chance to work with industry partners on transparency and responsible business practices.

What This Means for Owners and Managers

For ship owners, managers and charterers, the entry of ABS, DNV and RINA into MACN is a signal worth watching rather than a change with immediate operational effect. Classification societies sit at a unique intersection of commercial pressure and regulatory gatekeeping — surveyors issuing certificates, approving repairs, or signing off on condition assessments operate in many of the same high-risk ports where facilitation demands are common toward ships’ crews. Bringing class societies into a structured anti-corruption framework could, over time, help formalize expectations around how surveyors and attending engineers handle solicitations during inspections, port state control interactions, or emergency repairs abroad.

It also raises a useful question for technical superintendents: how well briefed are crews and shore staff on reporting channels when they encounter improper demands during surveys or certification visits? Independent inspection and survey providers, who are frequently present at the same ports and terminals where facilitation payment pressure arises — during bunker deliveries, cargo hold inspections, or pre-purchase surveys — have a direct interest in seeing corruption risk reduced industry-wide, since it affects the integrity of the documentation and findings that owners and charterers rely on.

A Broader Push for Transparency

While the announcement itself is limited to three class societies formally joining MACN, it reflects a wider industry trend toward embedding integrity and anti-corruption practices into the standard toolkit of maritime service providers, not just shipowners and operators. Whether other class societies follow ABS, DNV and RINA into MACN, and how quickly the network’s port-level intelligence sharing translates into measurable reductions in facilitation demands, will be worth tracking as the initiative develops.

Reviewed by Ibrahim Halil Ceylan, Marine Surveyor at Apeks Marine.