RINA is a

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

, multinational company headquartered in

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. It was founded in 1861 under the name Registro Italiano Navale (''Italian Naval Register''). That same year, following the enforcement of a 1994

European Council The European Council (informally EUCO) is a collegiate body that defines the overall political direction and priorities of the European Union. It is composed of the heads of state or government of the EU member states, the President of the ...

directive regarding the inspection, survey and certification of ships that liberalized the ship classification market, the Registro Italiano Navale transferred all operational activities to RINA S.p.A., making it the sole, and later, majority shareholder. Until 1999, RINA worked almost exclusively as a ship classification company, and has since included operations in the following sectors: Energy and Mobility, Marine, Certification, Industry and Real Estate and Infrastructure. The company has also expanded its services in the fields of

testing, inspection and certification The Testing, Inspection and Certification (TIC) sector consists of conformity assessment bodies who provide services ranging from auditing and inspection, to testing, verification, quality assurance and certification. The sector consists of both ...

and engineering consultancy.

History

Registro Italiano Navale

RINA was founded as operational company RINA S.p.A. by Registro Italiano Navale, a private body founded in

in 1861, to resolve a number of economic concerns involved in the maritime transport sector. It is the third-oldest ship classification register in the world, after the English Lloyd’s Register (1760) and the French

Bureau Veritas Bureau Veritas is a French company specialized in testing, inspection and certification founded in 1828. It operates in a variety of sectors, including building and infrastructure (27% of revenue), agri-food and commodities (23% of revenue), m ...

(1828). It is also a founding member of the IACS, a non-governmental organization that currently consists of twelve member marine classification societies. In its first 140 years, the Registro Italiano Navale operated as a monopoly on ships flying the Italian flag. Subsequently, a European directive came into force, which liberalized the ship classification and related activities, and led the Registro to enter for the first time a competitive market.

RINA S.p.A.

In 1999, the Registro Italiano Navale transferred all the operational activities to a brand-new company, RINA S.p.A., of which it then became the sole shareholder, now the majority shareholder. Currently, the Registro Italiano Navale is a private non-profit organization, comparable to a foundation.

RINA Services S.p.A.

In 2009, RINA Services S.p.A. was established, a company to which RINA S.p.A. transferred the authorisations and accreditations relating to classification, certification, auditing and testing services. In the following years, RINA acquired three companies operating in the consulting engineering market, D’Appolonia (2011), Centro Sviluppo Materiali (2014) and Edif Group Limited (2016). In 2017, D’Appolonia was rebranded as RINA Consulting.

Organisation and structure

The group is headed by RINA S.p.A., which acts as the holding company and no longer carries out operational activities, but provides the group with administrative, organisational and financial services. As parent company, RINA S.p.A. also controls the two main sub-holdings RINA Services S.p.A. and RINA Consulting S.p.A. The shareholders of RINA S.p.A. and therefore of the whole Group, are Registro Italiano Navale, with a large majority share (70%), Naus S.p.A. (27%) and RINA management (3%). On June 1, 2002, Ugo Salerno was appointed Chief Executive Officer of RINA; since 2012, he has also held the position of Chairman. The first office outside of Italy was opened in Shanghai in 1885. Today, it has a network of over 200 offices in 70 countries worldwide with a workforce of 4000 people. Its head office is in

Services

RINA provides quality assurance and certification for

ship A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research, and fishing. Ships are generally distinguished ...

's components and accessories, including life-saving appliances,

marine pollution Marine pollution occurs when substances used or spread by humans, such as industrial, agricultural and residential waste, particles, noise, excess carbon dioxide or invasive organisms enter the ocean and cause harmful effects there. The major ...

prevention, fire protection, navigation,

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

communication equipment, deck gear, cables, rodes, and

anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek � ...

s. It also provides engineering consultancy services through the RINA Consulting S.p.A. and its subsidiaries. RINA is one of the founding members of IACS and actively participates in technical, research and rule-making groups in different institutional contexts at national and international level.

Controversy

In December 1999 the tanker MV Erika sank off the coast of Brittany, causing a major oil spill. RINA was the certification society responsible for issuing all the safety certificates for Erika. The case came to trial in 2007 and Total, which chartered the oil tanker, was eventually found guilty and ordered to pay a fine of 375,000 € and a compensation to the civil parties of 200 M €. In December 2012 the garment factory

Ali Enterprises Factories in Pakistan's two largest cities of Karachi and Lahore caught fire on 11 September 2012. The fires occurred in a textile factory in the western part of Karachi and in a shoe factory in Lahore. The fires are considered to be the most d ...

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former c ...

burned down causing 289 victims. The Company was certified in the weeks before this incident by RINA with a

SA8000 The SA8000 Standard is an auditable certification standard that encourages organizations to develop, maintain, and apply socially acceptable practices in the workplace. It was developed in 1989 by Social Accountability International, formerly the C ...

certificate.

Notes

References

{{Authority control Ship classification societies Quality management Italian companies established in 1861 Ships of Italy