Alf Aanonsen has fired back against Grey Rock Gathering & Marketing after the refiner secured a $14.2m judgment against the Connecticut shipping figure’s Trinity Tankers and Trinity Enterprise.
Aanonsen, who controls the two companies, said the claims by Grey Rock are “not valid” because their contract was not subject to Texas law.
“Our contract with Grey Rock is covered under general arbitration New York, US, law,” Aanonsen told TradeWinds after the court decision.
As TradeWinds reported on Monday, US district judge Lee Rosenthal issued the default judgment after the Aanonsen-controlled companies did not respond to a lawsuit in which Grey Rock claimed that Trinity Enterprise failed to provide vessels it agreed to supply under a contract of affreightment (COA) with the Houston refiner.
The case was filed in the Houston division of the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
In addition to the $4.84m in damages that the charterer originally sought in the lawsuit, Grey Rock’s Phelps Dunbar attorneys also successfully requested an award of $9.35m in so-called “treble damages” under the Texas Deceptive Practices Act, based on allegations that Trinity Enterprise misrepresented that it could perform on the contract.
But Aanonsen said Trinity is asserting a $20m claim of its own against Grey Rock.
“And we will win in New York court,” he said in an email.
“Trinity nominated a vessel for our contract lifting which Grey Rock accepted. We later on found out ... that Grey Rock fixed another vessel from Penfield [Marine] to perform Trinity’s contract lifting.”
Grey Rock has said in court papers that the company was twice forced to ship its fuel oil cargoes on a replacement vessel at a higher cost after Trinity failed to provide a tanker under the COA.
