Maersk off the hook in concrete block fraud case, judge rules

Container shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk was not to blame for shipping 22 containers of “scrap copper” that turned out to be stuffed with worthless concrete blocks, an English court has found.

A Greek scrap metal dealer successfully sued the shipper of the cargo in Dubai but it has since disappeared so the company turned its attention to the liner operator which carried the bogus consignments on the 6,802-teu Maersk Klaipeda (built 2001) in 2019.

Maersk has ‘only’ upside as Arctic sees stock market as too bearish on container ship giant

Read more

The company, Stournaras Stylianos Monoprosopi, claimed liner operator Maersk A/S should not have issued three clean bills of lading as the cargo weighed far less than the shipper had stated in its shipping instructions.

The metal dealer handed over $740,000 to Dubai-based shipper Alembery General Trd Fzc after the containers were loaded on to the vessel at Jebel Ali port in Dubai ultimately bound for Piraeus, Greece, according to the ruling.

The containers were weighed at Jebel Ali port and found to be only 40% of the weight stated by the shippers — but the bills of lading were not amended, according to a court ruling.

The company only discovered when the shipment arrived in Piraeus that the containers were “stuffed with worthless concrete blocks”, according to the ruling.

The perpetrators went to elaborate lengths to hide the fraud including by sending photos of the supposed cargo.

The owner of the company was kept at his hotel and was unable to check the cargo despite an agreement that he should be able to do so.

At the time, Maersk did not have a system in place to cross-check the weight system, the court was told.

European ports act to halt drug-haul container corruption

Read more

It now performs checks and has a policy of issuing fines to the shipper where there is a discrepancy of 5,000 kg or more. Each of the containers in the shipment would have failed the test by a large margin, the ruling said.

High Court judge Lionel Persey said that if the carrier was alerted to a substantial weight discrepancy there was a “strong case” that it should not issue a bill of lading, or an amended one, because of the possibility of fraud.

But he found in favour of the shipping company because there was “no evidence that Maersk had any reason to consider in 2019 that the shippers would provide fraudulent data to them” and should have to check the weights.

The metal dealer told TradeWinds it would not appeal against the ruling.