Castleton Commodities terminated a charter agreement and filed a US lawsuit within the same day as part of a raging legal fight with with bulker operator Hudson Shipping Lines.
The Connecticut-headquartered commodities company says in court papers that it tore up Hudson's bareboat charter of two 61,000-dwt bulkers scheduled to be delivered soon by Japan's Shin Kurushima Toyohashi Shipbuilding.
Castleton alleges that Hudson breached the charters that would have brought it $40.1m in revenue over their seven-year period when it failed to deposit funds into a joint escrow account as required in a London arbitration award.
The company is seeking to recover $8.04m in estimated damages plus costs that bring the total to $12.06m.
Hudson, an Illinois-based operator of bulker tonnage, signed up to charter-in the ships in April 2014. The ships are to be delivered as the Loch Ness and Loch Nevis.
In a US federal lawsuit in New Orleans, Castleton's lawyers secured a court order today seizing bunkers on the 80,300-dwt Silver Navigator (built 2016), which is on charter to Hudson.
Based in a suburb north of Chicago, Hudson keeps a low profile but is not a small operator, with a fleet of 52 listed on its website. A company executive could not be immediately reached for comment for this story.
