Moller - Maersk announced its strategic choice to separate its oil and gas-related operations from the conglomerate structure and to concentrate only on container logistics in 2016.

In 2013, the company described itself as the world's largest overseas cargo carrier and operated over 600 vessels with 3.8 million[19] twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) container capacity.

[35][36] Svitzer has continued to grow, including through purchasing the tugboat operations of Adsteam,[37] and it now has a fleet of over 400 tugs, line handlers and other vessels.

Moller–Maersk Group, which owns and operates a fleet of US-flag vessels providing the U.S. Federal Government and their contractors with multimodal transportation and logistics services.

Maersk Line paid $31.9 million in fines to the U.S. in 2012, following a US Department of Justice investigation contending that Maersk had "knowingly overcharged the Department of Defense to transport thousands of containers from ports to inland delivery destinations in Iraq and Afghanistan" while under government contract to transport cargo via container ships in support of U.S.

[63] After focussing on intermodal services between North, Central and South America, in 2018 it was merged with other Maersk intra-regional brands MCC Transport and Seago Lines to cover European, Mediterranean, and Intra-Asian markets.

The 2010 merger of Maersk Training Centre and Svitzer Safety Services broadened a portfolio of courses to include the maritime, oil and gas terminals, and wind power industries.

With Headquarters in Svendborg, the MT Group global locations include Aberdeen and Newcastle in the UK, Esbjerg in Denmark, Stavanger in Norway, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Chennai & Mumbai in India, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

[72] Star Air operated 11 leased Boeing 767 cargo aircraft, primarily engaged in long-term contract flying for United Parcel Service (UPS) in Europe.

[74] The Eurasia operation began 20 March with three weekly flights on the first of three newly converted Boeing 767-300 freighters that were recently added to the fleet of Maersk Air Cargo.

[77] From territorial based point of view, the Maersk fleet is not obliged to make reductions,[78] but instead pay through slightly higher taxes from the emissions to a fund based on taxes from the fleets use of bunker fuel, which will be able to compensate and finance climate measures, a concept developed by the Ministry of Climate and the Danish Maritime Authority.

[79][80][81] In 2008, it was calculated by the DK Group that the Maersk fleet together released just over one million tonnes of sulfur dioxide SO2 per year from the fleets use of bunker fuel, and at the time until 2014, when China Shipping Lanes took over by one meter and 20 percent less fuel emissions,[82] the world's largest container ship Emma Mærsk emits SO2 equivalent to 50 million cars.

[83] The Danish Ministry of the Environment has in 2009 initiated an action plan, where the requirement is that SOx and NOx must be reduced using desulfurization plants, the so-called scrubbers, to build into the ships' chimney systems,[84] where the smoke gets showered to benefit the air, but researchers at the Department of Aquatic Resources, DTU Aqua, find that this pollution, by a lot of heavy metals and tar substances, so-called polycyclic hydrocarbons (PAHs),[85] are moved from the fuel into the sea instead, and thereby also poses a danger to the marine environment, as heavy metals do not break down and are taken up by plankton, from where they travel further up through the food chain - right up to fish.

On top of that, Maersk receives an unknown amount of state aid through the so-called DIS scheme, which allows the shipping company to pay tax-free salary to the crews,[90] and thereby the tax saved then accrues to the shipping companies as state aid in the form of lower labor costs, which for the four years 2017–2020 are calculated at DKK 925, 925, 1,050 and 1,100 million respectively.

[106][107] A lead now controlled by the Danish group Dan-Bunkering's owner company Bunker Holding, also known as Bunker Holding Group, and represented in 33 countries, is by 2022 the world's leading supplier and retailer of ship fuels, specializing since 1981 in the purchase, sale and delivery of fuel and lubricating oil for ships,[108] but which on 14 December 2021 was convicted for violation of EU sanctions against supplies to Syria, to protect the civilian population from attacks by bombers, when the Danish billion worth company, via agreements through its branch office in Kaliningrad in Russia with two Russian companies, Joint Stock Company Sovfracht and Maritime Assistance LLC, who were agents for the Russian Navy, and at several occasions from higher levels was informed of there violation, delivered jet fuel under cover of darkness, transshipped from one ship to another on the high seas, for use by the Russian military, a regular supplier for more than 30 years,[109] to use in the petrol tanks of Russian fighter aircraft that have been air raid bombing Syria on behalf of Bashar al-Assad,[110] with a fine of DKK 30 million for having sold 172,000 tonnes of jet fuel through 33 deals worth around DKK 648 million, and confiscation of the profit of around DKK 15 million and fined DKK four million, as well as a conditional discharge of four months in prison for the managing director of Bunker Holding, for having acted negligently, but not intentionally,[111] as Dan-Bunkering's owner company Bunker Holding was found guilty of participating in eight of the transactions, it was fined DKK four million, a sentence not appealed against by Dan-Bunkering and Bunker Holding,[112] "has the full confidence of the board and the owners",[113] nor by the State Attorney for Special Economic and International Crime (SØIK), that didn't find reasons to appeal to increase the sentence, even a demand for two years' imprisonment and specified "the fuel has gone to Russian fighter jets, which on behalf of Assad have bombed Syria with the help of a total of 172,000 tons of jet fuel sold from the company headquarters in Middelfart via the two Russian companies in the period 2015 to 2017, and the EU introduced sanctions against Syria in 2014",[110][114][115] expanded its lead as the world's largest bunker oil supplier in 2020, shows a report from the research house Seacred and the media Ship & Bunker, a location Bunker Holding, owned by United Shipping & Trading Company (USTC),[116] has expanded from 2020, if measured in terms of volumes, which is particularly connected with Bunker Holding's purchase of Oceanconnect Marine, which is today merged with Bunker Holding's subsidiary KPI Bridge Oil.

These events were subsequently dramatized in the 2013 film Captain Phillips, directed by Paul Greengrass, starring Tom Hanks in the titular role.

Maersk Line estimated that piracy costs the company $100 million per year due to longer routes and higher speed, particularly near East Africa.

In January and May 2008, two riots reportedly broke out amongst workers at the Maersk plant in Dongguan in protest of poor working conditions and employment terms.

"[121] In response to a complaint from whistleblower Jerry H. Brown II, the US Government filed suit against Maersk for overcharging for shipments to US forces fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The US government imposed a trade embargo on Sudan in 1997 due to human rights violations linked to the civil war between the north and south of the African country and also because of the regime's alleged support of international terrorist groups.

[123] In July 2010, the advocacy group initially highlighted Maersk's ties to a blacklisted Iranian company, Tidewater Middle East Co.

[133][134] In June 2022, Hope Hicks, formerly known as "Midshipman X" filed a lawsuit against Maersk, alleging that the company failed to protect her from rampant sexual abuse.

[135] In the same month, a second US Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) student under the alias "Midshipman Y" filed a suit against Maersk, also alleging that the company did not protect her from sexual abuse and violence.

[136] In 2009, it was estimated that the Maersk fleet's use of bunker fuel released sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, into the atmosphere corresponding to the emissions from 9 billion cars, with resultant serious health, environmental, and climate change impacts related.

[139] The health problem with bunker fuel (heavy fuel oil), a type of oil used in 80 per cent of the world's merchant ships in 2008, with a total consumption of 290 million tons per year is, that it has a very high sulfur content followed by sulfur dioxide, which smokes directly from the chimney, after which it spreads and can make people sick or even be lethal," says Jørgen Brandt, who is a senior researcher at the Department of Atmospheric Environment at Aarhus University.

Møller Mærsk, stated in 2009: "Among other things, we have entered into close cooperation with Boeing on the development of biofuel for the shipping industry, which will constitute a technological quantum leap.

However, scientists and research of Norwegian Vestlandsforskning have found that biodiesel can increase the risk of cancer, caused by two molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), which is formed from fossil diesel, and fatty acid methyl esters (FAME), formed from biodiesel, and also show an ecotoxicological profile of both urban and rural air pollution.

[146] The Basel Action Network (BAN) alerted the South African government to the fact that the Automatic Identification System (AIS) GPS beacon of the Maersk Campton was switched off on 31 July 2024 in contravention of the Maritime Organisation’s SOLAS Convention and failed to make its scheduled docking in Cape Town.

The practice, known as cloaking, can be used for illegitimate purposes, e.g. to hide the location of a ship in cases where illegal dumping of waste takes place.

Cloaking however is also used for legitimate reasons such as security concerns, e.g. to protect vessels in transit near the Red Sea from being targeted by terrorist groups.