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Søren Skou
Maersk Global CEO
As the global CEO of Maersk since 2012, Søren Skou has systematically protected and defended numerous Maersk ship’s officers who were accused of sexually harassing, sexually assaulting, and raping mariners aboard Maersk Line vessels all over the world. For a decade, Skou has worked tirelessly to shield those predators from justice in order to protect Maersk’s reputation and profits.
Søren Skou has refused to answer journalists questions about how Maersk handles sexual harassment and sexual assault cases and forbidden his public relations executives from doing so either. In April 2021 Nicolaj Vorre of Danish publication Ekstra Bladet wrote a piece subtitled, “The country’s largest company prides itself on openness, but will not answer questions about internal MeToo cases. It faces criticism from several sides.”
In that story, Ekstra Bladet wrote, “we have tried in vain to get Maersk to disclose the scope of cases of sexual harassment and sexual abuse in the company’s Danish department. However, Maersk has not answered questions about the number of cases or any consequences. Instead, the company merely states that it does not ‘tolerate discrimination or harassment’. But it is far from good enough when Maersk on its website boasts of having openness as a core value. This is the opinion of communications expert Jesper Højbjerg Christensen, who is an adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School (CBS):
“It’s certainly not credible,” Christensen said. “This case shows that there is a mismatch between what Maersk says and what they actually do. That’s unfortunate,” he says.”
Søren Skou, through his American lawyers, has also systematically attacked the victims of those predators and waged scorched-earth campaigns to discredit victims of harassment and abuse aboard his vessels, including by filing lawsuits against the victims.
Since 2016, Skou has attempted to protect and defend infamous shipboard sexual predator Captain Mark Stinziano. Skou even attempted to intervene in the U.S. Coast Guard’s prosecution of Stinziano for sexual harassment and shipboard sex crimes aboard the Maersk Idaho by ordering an American executive to send a letter to Admiral Karl Schultz, Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard.
As of May 22, 2022, Søren Skou is still defending Captain Stinziano and still employing Captain Stinziano, despite the fact that a federal judge suspended Stinziano’s merchant mariner’s license after he was found to have committed at least three acts of “assault and battery” against a USMMA deck cadet, to have “hazed” a USMMA deck cadet, to have stuck a ball point pen into his own asshole and made the cadet smell it, to have made the 2nd Mate unknowingly use the pen Stinziano stuck into his own asshole, to have lured cadets into his stateroom under the pretense of watching a movie, only to then show them a movie wherein a man cut a fetus out of a pregnant woman’s belly before subsequently raping the newborn baby to death, to have forced cadets to watch hardcore pornography, and to have repeatedly groped and sexually assaulted crew members.
As of May 22, 2022 Søren Skou is STILL EMPLOYING CAPTAIN STINZIANO and has taken no public adverse action against him.
Since at least 2016, Søren Skou has known that sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and violent rapes against cadets from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy were rampant problems aboard his Maersk vessels. On November 14, 2016 (via Edward Hanley, V.P. of Labor Relations) Søren Skou sent a letter to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in which Maersk and Søren Skou acknowledged that they were not receiving reports of sexual abuse because officers aboard their ships may be silencing victims and covering up sex crimes, and because “the reasons for cadets not reporting SASH are complex, and may include fear of retribution, intimidation, or peer ostracism.”
In his 2016 letter to the USMMA, Skou also acknowledged that anonymous surveys taken by students at the USMMA showed that rates of sexual abuse aboard Maersk vessels were dramatically higher than rates of reports of sexual abuse received by Maersk. And yet Skou did nothing to stop the rapes. Instead, he fought behind the scenes, using his considerable power, to gut and dilute any meaningful safety reforms that would have protected cadets and other mariners from sexual predators within Maersk’s ranks.
Søren Skou has protected sexual predators, enabled and even facilitated sexual abuse, and has prevented even a single victim of shipboard sexual harassment or assault from filing a lawsuit against Maersk during his entire tenure at the company. All the while, Søren Skou has made record profits for Maersk while young mariners have suffered rampant abuse at the hands of Maersk employees.
Links to MLAA stories and documents about Søren Skou: