A CMA CGM lawsuit attorney is usually a specialist, not a generalist: claims against the French container carrier and its U.S. subsidiaries run across admiralty, employment, cargo, regulatory, and antitrust law, and the right lawyer depends on which type of case you have. Jones Act crew injuries go to maritime personal injury firms. Cargo loss claims go to admiralty lawyers who know the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act. Harassment and discrimination suits go to employment counsel. Billing disputes go to attorneys who practice before the Federal Maritime Commission. The company itself is defended by in-house counsel at CMA CGM America, backed by outside defense firms for regulatory and international work.
What follows is a map of the active and recent claim types, with the kind of attorney who handles each.
Jones Act Claims by Crew Members
As one of the world’s largest vessel operators, CMA CGM regularly faces personal injury claims from seafarers under the Jones Act, which lets seamen injured or made ill on the job recover for their injuries, lost wages, and loss of earning capacity. Typical allegations against shipping companies involve negligent acts causing injury, dangerous working conditions, and hazardous living quarters aboard vessels. Federal violation records show 33 workplace safety and health violations and 10 Jones Act violations assessed against CMA CGM and its subsidiaries by agencies including OSHA and Customs and Border Protection.
These cases are the core work of maritime injury firms. Lipcon, Margulies and Winkleman and Brais Law Firm are among the plaintiff firms that have represented crew members and cargo claimants against CMA CGM and other major shipping lines.
Cargo Loss and Damage Claims
Disputes over lost or damaged cargo are routine in container shipping, and claims against ocean carriers like CMA CGM are generally governed by the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act. COGSA caps a carrier’s liability at $500 per package unless the shipper declares a higher value on the bill of lading before shipment. Carriers must prove that negligence was not a factor in the loss, but they can invoke 17 statutory defenses, including acts of God and perils of the sea.
Two deadlines matter. Shippers have one year from delivery to file suit, and they must provide written notice of damage within three days of delivery when the damage is not immediately apparent.
The $500 limitation has produced significant litigation of its own. Federal courts are split on what counts as a “package”: whether it is each individual carton or an entire pallet or container. The Second Circuit tends to enforce contractual definitions in the bill of lading, while the Ninth Circuit applies stricter scrutiny and may reject container-as-package clauses when individual items are listed on the bill. A shipper trying to recover more than $500 per unit can declare a higher cargo value before shipment, challenge the carrier’s definition of “package,” or argue that the carrier failed to provide a genuine opportunity to declare higher value. Each of those arguments is admiralty work, and the attorneys who do it are typically COGSA specialists.
Harassment, Retaliation, and Discrimination Suits
Several employment cases are currently pending or recently resolved against CMA CGM and its U.S. subsidiaries.
In April 2026, former Business Process Manager Nidhara Narasimhan sued CMA CGM (America) LLC in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. She alleges a co-worker subjected her to groping, indecent exposure, stalking, and explicit messages, and that she reported the conduct to HR four separate times between February and September 2024 without any investigation or discipline. She also claims she identified widespread Form I-9 compliance errors that helped the company avoid roughly $3.6 million in potential ICE penalties, and that she was fired in April 2025 — ostensibly for “team dynamics” — in retaliation for both her harassment reports and her compliance work. The company later revoked her approved I-140 immigration petition, according to the complaint. CMA CGM had not filed a response as of early June 2026, with an answer due by June 22, 2026. Narasimhan is represented by the Gaynor Law Center and is seeking back pay, front pay, and compensatory and punitive damages before a jury.
A separate harassment case involved Quentin Brown, a Third Assistant Engineer employed by APL Maritime, a U.S. subsidiary of CMA CGM. Brown and his wife, Fahmi Rahmani, filed suit in September 2024 in the Northern District of California, alleging that Brown was sexually harassed while working aboard the container ship CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin. That case settled on confidential terms.
Around the same time, a young male Third Assistant Engineer brought a separate lawsuit against APL Marine Services and CMA CGM in the Eastern District of Virginia, alleging harassment, bullying, sexual harassment, physical assault, and a hostile work environment aboard the M/V APL Gulf Express. In March 2026, the court denied the defendants’ motions to dismiss, allowing the case to proceed. The chief engineer accused of the misconduct voluntarily surrendered his Merchant Mariner Credential after investigations by the Coast Guard Investigative Service and Coast Guard suspension and revocation prosecutors.
On the discrimination side, Dawson v. CMA CGM (America) LLC, filed in August 2025 in the Middle District of Tennessee, brought job discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. CMA CGM filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, with briefing still active as of late 2025 and a jury trial scheduled for September 2027. Dawson is represented by attorney Brian Keith Leonard. A separate case, Karim-Seidou v. CMA CGM (America) LLC, was dismissed with prejudice by the District of New Jersey in December 2024, with the court finding that CMA CGM and co-defendant Troy Container Lines are private entities, not state actors, and that the plaintiff’s civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 failed as a matter of law.
Employment claimants against CMA CGM have generally retained plaintiff-side employment firms rather than maritime boutiques. The Gaynor Law Center handled Narasimhan’s case; smaller plaintiff practices have appeared in the discrimination matters.
Federal Maritime Commission Complaints
Shippers and haulers with billing or service disputes against CMA CGM typically file at the Federal Maritime Commission, and the attorneys who handle those matters are regulatory practitioners who appear before the agency.
In May 2024, the FMC announced a compromise agreement under which CMA CGM paid $1,975,000 in civil penalties. The agency alleged that CMA CGM had defined “merchant” too broadly in its bills of lading, using that definition to demand payment from third parties who should not have been billed. As part of the deal, CMA CGM agreed to restrict its merchant definition to shippers, consignees, and persons with a beneficial interest in the cargo, and to provide refunds and waivers to affected parties. The company did not admit to any legal violations.
A separate FMC proceeding, PKDC, LLC v. CMA CGM S.A. (Docket No. 24-21), is ongoing. PKDC alleges that CMA CGM systematically refused to meet service commitments, required payment of surcharges not provided for in contracts before performing services, and assessed unreasonable demurrage and detention charges.
California-based haulier Access One Transport also lodged a complaint with the FMC seeking approximately $77,000 in damages. Access One alleged that during the pandemic, CMA CGM assigned terminals for returning empty containers but failed to provide appointments or restricted the number of empties accepted, forcing the company to store containers at its own expense and incur detention charges, stop-off fees, and storage costs.
Fraud and Commercial Litigation Involving Subsidiaries
APL Limited, a CMA CGM subsidiary, paid a combined $36.1 million across two False Claims Act settlements with the U.S. Department of Justice, both related to military shipping contracts. In February 2009, APL paid $26.3 million to resolve allegations that it had overcharged and double-billed the Department of Defense for transporting cargo containers supporting U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, including inflated charges for electricity and maintenance of refrigerated containers at a port in Karachi, Pakistan, and billing for non-reimbursable services at a Kuwaiti port. The case originated from a whistleblower lawsuit filed by Jerry H. Brown II, who received $5.2 million as his statutory share. In October 2015, APL paid an additional $9.8 million to settle allegations that it billed the DOD for GPS tracking of shipping containers on the Karachi-to-Afghanistan route despite knowing the tracking devices were not properly affixed or had failed to transmit data. In some instances, APL allegedly attached a single tracker to two containers when the contract required one per container. Neither settlement included a formal determination of liability. FCA matters are the province of whistleblower (qui tam) counsel on the plaintiff side.
CMA CGM also appears as a plaintiff. The company sued Houston-based fuel supplier GCC Supply and Trading in the Southern District of Texas, seeking more than $5 million in damages over alleged contamination of fuel delivered to 13 vessels at the Port of Houston between March and June 2023. CMA CGM alleged that the contaminated fuel caused pump seizures, engine power loss, blackouts, and physical damage to equipment across its fleet. The claims included breach of contract, breach of warranties, negligence, and product liability. A July 2025 court ruling compelled the dispute to arbitration under the Society of Maritime Arbitrators rules in New York, finding that the parties had agreed to arbitrate through an earlier email exchange.
Antitrust and Helms-Burton Matters
Antitrust and international-sanctions claims against CMA CGM are rarer and tend to involve specialized counsel.
In December 2025, South Africa’s Competition Commission referred CMA CGM’s local unit and seven other major shipping companies to the Competition Tribunal for prosecution, alleging that they fixed general rate increases on routes between South Africa and Asia, and between South Africa and West Africa, from 2008 to 2018. The Commission found that the carriers charged identical rate increases on multiple routes in and out of Durban. Other respondents include the local units of MSC, Maersk, Cosco, and Evergreen. In Europe, CMA CGM was investigated by the European Commission in Case AT.39850, which examined whether the company’s price announcements in container shipping harmed competition. In 2015, CMA CGM offered commitments, agreeing to stop publishing rate changes expressed solely as the amount or percentage of an increase, without admitting any infringement. The Commission made no determination that a violation had occurred.
CMA CGM also faced a lawsuit under the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996, commonly known as the Helms-Burton Act. The case, Odette Blanco de Fernandez v. CMA CGM S.A., was filed in 2021 in the Southern District of Florida and involved claims related to the alleged trafficking of property confiscated by the Cuban government. After years of litigation and mediation overseen by retired Judge Michael Hanzman, the parties reached a settlement on November 29, 2025. The case was administratively closed in December 2025, with no financial terms disclosed.
Who Represents CMA CGM
CMA CGM’s in-house legal team in the U.S. is led by Kristi Thompson, Deputy General Counsel for Commercial at CMA CGM America. The department has focused on reducing reliance on outside counsel through automation and data-driven resource allocation, though regulatory proceedings and international arbitration still bring in outside firms. Given the diversity of claims the company faces across admiralty, employment, regulatory, and commercial law, the defense bench ranges from boutique maritime practices to larger firms handling FMC proceedings, antitrust referrals, and international arbitration.
For a claimant, the practical point is to match the attorney to the claim: a Jones Act injury and a COGSA cargo claim both sit in admiralty but need different experience; an FMC billing dispute is regulatory work, not courtroom litigation; and a harassment or Title VII case belongs with employment counsel who litigate against large corporate defendants.