The Importance of Regulatory Compliance

In case you haven’t turned on the news lately (and it can sometimes be hard to do so these days…), there has been major news regarding OceanGate’s missing Titanic submersible, now officially a catastrophic loss. For those who haven’t followed the story, a tourist submarine went missing during a dive set for the Titanic’s wreck on Sunday. OceanGate sent five people – the Company’s CEO, three paying guests, and a content expert - for an eight-day trip to the site of the Titanic’s wreck. The Titanic’s wreck lies some 435 miles south of St John’s Newfoundland at a depth of 3,800 meters (12,500 ft). For comparison, the Grand Canyon is 2,400 meters (8,000 ft) tall.
OceanGate Expeditions has been taking crews to the Titanic site over the past two years, though the company has completed more than a dozen dives since 2010. The submersible is a unique design and is not a submersible that operates within well-established safety guidelines. In 2018, OceanGate faced a safety lawsuit brought on by a former employee, David Lochridge. Lochridge had extensive background and training as a submarine pilot, including being an Underwater Inspector trained to recognize flaw points of failure in subsea equipment. As alleged in the complaint, the submersible utilized carbon fiber, rather than a metallic composition in its hull. As a result, issues of quality control were raised since there were evident flaws throughout the build process. It was alleged the viewpoint at the forward of the submersible was only built to a certified pressure of 1,300 meters. The manufacturer would only certify to a depth of 1,300 meters due to the experimental design of the submersible which was out of the Pressure Vessels for Human Occupancy standards. The Defendant’s answers (and counterclaims) can be found here (the suit was settled in November of 2018), but recent events can certainly make you wonder about the allegations.

While entrepreneurs are sometimes known for cutting corners on regulatory compliance, it can be important to help businesses maintain ethical and security standards. Even if you can’t afford to maintain dedicated positions that focus solely on compliance regulation, maintaining a standard of regulatory compliance can help to build a secure business environment for customers and employees by shielding the business from lawsuits and other damaging incidents. In addition, it can help ensure your business can prove its integrity, reliability, and ethics. And touting those standards can become an important part of your brand identity.