Samsung Electronics has filed a complaint against Zim before the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), making it the largest company to do so since shippers began to hit out at liner operators last year.
The South Korean electronics giant’s New Jersey subsidiary accused Zim of failing to complete deliveries of its goods, then levying thousands of detention and demurrage charges on its containers, sometimes charging the same fee twice and other times without explanation.
Samsung Electronic America also said the Israeli containership operator retaliated against it once it complained.
“Throughout 2021 and to the present … Zim continued to transport [Samsung] goods on store door terms under through bills of lading or sea waybills for inland delivery in the US, and continued to repeatedly fail to properly perform its inland transportation obligations,” the company said in its complaint.
Store door terms were defined by Samsung as where an ocean carrier arranges for both ocean and inland transportation.
In late 2020, Samsung alleged Zim began “repeatedly and chronically” failing to perform the inland portion of the deliveries, blaming trucker and chassis shortages, port congestion and weather issues.
Samsung alleges that these issues, despite being out of its control, still resulted in charges that Zim refused to waive or modify as its containers were stuck in ports and other facilities.
Those charges, Samsung said, did not always come with adequate information, charged Samsung fees for containers it was not responsible for and sometimes were invoices for charges it had already paid.
While Samsung did not put a dollar figure on damages, the company said it received more than 2,000 demurrage charges and more than 7,000 detention charges.
It further accused Zim of retaliating against it when it attempted to dispute invoices by refusing available cargo space and refusing to release containers at its facilities.
Zim said it was aware of the complaint from Samsung, but was unable to provide further details as the company was looking into the matter.
US shippers began filing complaints before the FMC, the federal government body tasked with regulating international shipping, in July 2021 following President Joe Biden's directive for government agencies to take a closer look at the behaviour of liner operators.
Most of the complaints have come from smaller companies, like New Jersey tyre importer Foreign Tire Sales or Royal White Cement, a cement company in Texas.
The most high-profile dispute is between MCS Industries, a Pennsylvania furniture manufacturer, and Mediterranean Shipping Co, which MSC has argued is a meritless contractual dispute despite the threat of a default judgement.
All three companies accused the liner operators of signing contracts guaranteeing space on board, then reneging and pushing them into a hot spot market.
Detention and demurrage charges have also been a sore spot for US legislators and shippers.
In June, the Ocean Shipping Reform Act made it so carriers have to justify detention and demurrage fees to shippers following a directive from Biden the year prior for the FMC to look into the charges.
