Maersk Line Ltd (MLL) is in settlement talks with the two US Merchant Marine Academy cadets who alleged hey experienced sexual misconduct aboard the liner operator’s ships.
According to documents filed in a New York state court, the AP Moller-Maersk subsidiary and the two midshipmen have asked for a stay of proceedings until at least mid-November.
MLL is facing lawsuits from Hope Hicks, who was better known as Midshipman X, and anonymous classmate Midshipman Y.
“The parties have recently begun engaging in private resolution discussions in this matter,” the sides said in a joint filing.
“The parties expect to attend mediation in the next two months in the hope of resolving this matter.”
If discussions drag on past November, the sides said they could file for an extension of the stay.
Hicks shook the US-flag shipping industry last September when, under the pseudonym Midshipman X, she published an account of her rape aboard an MLL ship on the Maritime Legal Aid and Advocacy website.
The post pushed the US Maritime Administration to shut down the Merchant Marine Academy's at-sea training programme known as Sea Year temporarily while it developed new standards in an attempt to prevent further incidents of sexual assault and misconduct.
Hicks went public in June after the lawsuit was filed. A second lawsuit, from Midshipman Y, was filed at the same time.
Midshipman Y alleges that she and her fellow shipmates felt she was being targeted for being a woman.
She said that she was the subject of sexist jokes, comments and touching by the ship’s electrician and that the chief mate assigned her extra work in the galley her male counterparts were not required to do.
She said the treatment was so bad that she would sleep locked in her bathroom with a knife. Upon return to the academy’s Long Island campus, she began failing classes and suffered a panic attack that would leave her hospitalised.
Both Hicks and Midshipman Y served aboard the 6,000-ceu car carrier Alliance Fairfax (built 2005), but on different voyages.
MLL has said it has zero tolerance for assault, harassment or discrimination on its vessels.
