The former Bed Bath and Beyond is asking a US judge to allow it to update its claim against Orient Overseas Container Line in a battle over fees.
OOCL’s lawyers have objected to the proposal as an intimidation tactic.
The company’s lawyers told the Federal Maritime Commission judge that they want to file an amended complaint seeking nearly $44.3m in damages.
That is $12.6m higher than the US home goods store’s last version of its FMC complaint against OOCL.
The request was filed some 19 months after Bed Bath and Beyond filed the claim against China Cosco Shipping-controlled OOCL alleging that it failed to meet its minimum service commitments, forcing it to pay more to secure freight in the spot market.
The dispute is one of several before the FMC over the supply-chain crunch that beset container shipping after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Bed Bath and Beyond’s Chapter 11 restructuring was converted into a liquidation in September.
The company’s stores were shuttered and the remaining assets controlled by an entity known by the less catchy name 20230930-DK-Butterfly-1. The entity also filed a complaint against MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company.
The firm’s lawyers, led by Huth Reynolds partner Matthew Reynolds, told chief administrative law judge Erin Wirth that the larger claim they want to include in the amended complaint is a result of evidence gathered in the proceedings’ fact discovery charges.
They include higher detention and demurrage charges, as well as overpayments for shipping shortfalls.
OOCL’s lawyers, who work for law firms Blank Rome and Jeffrey/Fenneman Law + Strategy, have objected to the proposed amended complaint.
They argued that there is nothing new that Bed Bath and Beyond could not have included in its first complaint, and it comes too late.
“The sole purpose of the proposed amendment, other than perhaps to defer the December 10 due date of complainant’s opening brief, seems to be one of gamesmanship, to increase the in terrorem effect of the amount of reparations sought by complainant … so as to intimidate,” the lawyers said in a filing signed by Blank Rome partner Keith Letourneau.
“That tactic will not work.”
But Bed Bath and Beyond’s lawyers wrote that the amendment is a result of the discovery of information that was not known at the time of the original filing and the first amended complaint.
“The proposed second amended complaint does not broaden the issues in the case and will not affect respondents’ defences or case preparation,” they wrote.
“Instead, the proposed second amended complaint merely updates the damages calculations to conform to the evidence and recent FMC decisions, to avoid any possible complaint of lack of notice on the part of Respondents, and to clarify that Complainant seeks reparations in an amount higher than the amount pleaded in the first amended complaint.”
