Cargo interests pressing a $4.9m claim against Shipping Asset Management (SAM) have told a US judge the Swiss bulker operator has transferred a ship to an affiliate in an effort to evade legal action.
SAM has sold or transferred four vessels since May. Maltese trade financier FIMBank alleges that one of them, the 52,500-dwt Nord (built 2003), was shifted to an entity controlled by the Geneva-based company.
The transaction emerged after FIMBank lodged a legal action that has held another SAM ship, the 32,600-dwt SAM Eagle (2010), under arrest at the Texas port of Corpus Christi since it called there on 13 September.
Lawyers for SAM are working to release the ship and are pursuing damage claims against FIMBank for wrongful arrest.
The dispute originated with a cargo of 51,200 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat discharged at Alexandria in Egypt by the Nord in May 2018, when it was called Nika. Part of the wheat allegedly wound up in the hands of the wrong parties, who obtained it without producing the original bills of lading.
Multiple jurisdictions
FIMBank, which financed the deal for trader AOS Trading DMCC, is pursuing action in the US federal court in Corpus Christi, the High Court in London and in London arbitration.
In March, the financier separately obtained a $20.7m judgment in Dubai against AOS Trading.
The Nord already had a significant history as an object of litigation.
Under the name Jin Kang, it was ordered by Jinhui Shipping for charter to its Hong Kong neighbour Parakou Shipping in a “sleeve” deal on behalf of China’s Ocean Glory, shortly before that company folded.
The resulting arbitration award in Jinhui’s favour had mounted to $60m, including interest, as of May 2017.
In the Texas arrest case, FIMBank is claiming SAM arranged a sham sale to avoid having the ship arrested after the dispute flared up.
The vessel, now trading under the name Nord, is listed as belonging to an otherwise unknown entity called Anchor Nautical SA since 24 June.
But FIMBank described the sale as a “sham transaction such that [the ship] remained in the ultimate control of SAM Geneva and such changes were only undertaken to frustrate the interests and rights of plaintiff as a creditor”.
“[The ship] was not circulated in the market as being available for sale as would ordinarily be in the interests of owners to do if looking for a highest-price bid on an open market,” FIMBank’s lawyers wrote.
FIMBank also believes that whether sham or real, the deal was done so quickly that it must have been prepared during a 29 March 2019 standstill agreement between the parties, under which SAM had agreed not to sell the ship and FIMBank had agreed not to arrest it or any other SAM vessels. The standstill agreement expired three days before the Nord was sold, FIMBank claims.
The sale emerged after SAM offloaded a series of handysize and supramax bulkers.
In May this year, it sold the 46,800-dwt handymax Victoria (built 1997) for a reported $4.2m to Shanghai Vasteast International, which renamed it Xiang Fu. The disputed Nika transaction followed in June.
In August, SAM sold the 34,200-dwt SAM Phoenix (built 2011) for $8.8m to a party believed to be Greek. Last month, it unloaded the 34,200-dwt SAM Falcon (built 2011), for $8.75m, also to a Greek buyer.
Final-voyage financing
After delivery of these last two Chinese-built ships, SAM will have a fleet of two handysizes and four supramaxes built from 2010 to 2013. President and chief executive Geert Descheemaeker did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last year, TradeWinds reported that it repossessed a ship from the fleet of Greek owner Aroania Maritime after stepping in as a creditor. FIMBank has also reportedly been involved in final-voyage financing for cash buyers.
