US-listed containership owner Euroseas has emerged victorious from a dispute over the failed sale of a 25-year-old boxship last year.
According to sources close to the matter, the Aristides Pittas-controlled company is boosting its coffers with a $1.2m cash injection.
This amount had been held in escrow in a dispute with Compass Shipping & Trading — an affiliate of cash buyer Mideast Shipping & Trading Ltd.
Mideast Shipping had agreed to buy the 1,452-teu Manolis P (built 1995) in February last year for about $410 per ldt. This was at the time a remarkably high demolition price, 40% of which was deposited by the cash buyer.
A few weeks later, however, when the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic was in full swing, Mideast Shipping reneged on the deal, arguing that Euroseas failed to timely deliver the vessel off Alang.
The ship’s Greek managers disputed this, claiming that the Manolis P was physically at the agreed location and at the agreed time and it was just formal procedures that ran late, due to measures taken by Indian authorities to contain Covid-19.
As the dispute dragged on, Mideast Shipping managed to arrest the Manolis P in Gujarat. Euroseas, however, quickly secured the vessel’s release and managed to sell it to another party a few months later.
The dispute with Mideast was subsequently referred to London arbitration.
TradeWinds understands that Euroseas effectively won the case after Mideast Shipping threw in the towel. Arbitration proceedings stopped, following the cash buyer’s failure to post security, TradeWinds is told.
Repeated attempts to reach Shabbir Baig-led Mideast Shipping by telephone and email under its listed numbers and coordinates were not successful.
Attention to detail can go a long way towards preventing such disputes, said an attorney who advised Euroseas on aspects of Indian law.
“Owners should have clear and crisp MOAs [memoranda of understanding] with a special emphasis on those clauses detailing the arrival of the vessel and her firm location upon arrival for inward formalities to begin,” said Shashank Agrawal of SSA Legal Gujarat.
“Anything left ambiguous tends to be exploited appropriately.”
