Blue Wall Shipping is not being wound down, despite recent vessel sales and court papers stating the contrary, chief executive George Gourdomichalis said.
"The answer is there is no comment," Gourdomichalis told TradeWinds.
"The answer is anybody can write whatever they want in their documents. That doesn’t mean it is so."
Attorneys for Pacific Gulf Shipping said in documents filed in their appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that several Blue Wall directors confirmed the company was selling its fleet and winding down its business during the years-long legal battle over the abandonment of the now-scrapped 73,500-dwt Adamastos (built 1995).
Since March 2019 Blue Wall has sold up to six of its eight ships, bringing in more than $30m. The most recent ship to go, according to brokers, was the 52,500-dwt Vigorous (built 2004), as TradeWinds reported last month. Gourdomichalis had declined to comment about whether the reports of its sale were accurate.
Wednesday, Gourdomichalis said no director has said anything to that effect and that “vessels are sold and bought by everybody, always”.
Pacific Gulf had two of Blue Wall's ships, the 52,500-dwt Vigorous (built 2005) and the 30,778-dwt Fearless (built 2001) seized in 2018 and 2019 in an attempt to enforce a nearly $24m arbitration award won in London.
The company alleges Blue Wall, manager Phoenix Shipping & Trading and several shipowning companies are corporate alter egos and liable for the Adamastos' abandonment offshore Brazil in 2015.
Then, the Adamastos was found to have a litany of deficiencies and was held by authorities and broke free of its moorings and drifted out to sea before being abandoned and scrapped.
The Vigorous was seized in Portland, Oregon and was later freed after Blue Wall posted $9.5m in security.
Pacific Gulf had its lawsuit dismissed after US District Judge Michael Mosman granted summary judgment this last January. Mosman said Pacific Gulf failed to establish their alter ego claims.
As part of their appeal, Pacific Gulf had asked that the San Francisco-based appeals court stay the release of the $9.5m, citing Blue Wall's alleged wind down.
Pacific Gulf, represented by Chaos & Co, argued that Blue Wall would sell the remainder of its fleet sometime in 2020, leaving it no entity from which to collect.
