A shipowning entity connected to Germany’s Hammonia Reederei is asking an Indian court to overturn the arrest of a product tanker at the centre of a legal battle with a Greek painting and coatings contractor.
General Shipping arrested Hammonia’s 49,700-dwt product tanker Weco Madeleine (built 2016) in the port of Mundra in July 2023, claiming that the ship’s owner refused to pay for additional costs incurred when paint jobs on the Weco Madeleine and its identical sister ship Hammonia Athene (renamed Weco Amelie, built 2015) ran over time and budget.
Hammonia provided cash security into the High Court of Gujarat at Ahmedabad to have the ship released from arrest and is now petitioning the court to overturn the arrest, which it claims was wrongfully made.
In its counterclaim, Hammonia is also seeking about $4.6m in damages it alleges to have suffered from loss of hire due to the delays in completing the painting projects, along with legal costs to secure the physical release of the ship and loss of hire during the two days it spent under arrest in Mundra.
General Shipping, when it arrested the Weco Madeleine, claimed the painting projects on the ship and the Hammonia Athene went over budget and into overtime because high summer temperatures required washing and painting work to be conducted at night.
The company also claimed extra costs due to increased labour, grit and diesel requirements, and further asserted that it was unable to take on other work due to the additional time required to work on Hammonia’s two ships.
In May of last year, a few months after the work was finished, General Shipping forwarded invoices to Hammonia totalling €525,700 ($562,590) for the additional costs incurred, of which €403,450 was attributed to the Weco Madeleine.
General Shipping stated that when Hammonia finally replied, it said the Greek business had no claim.
Hammonia, in its counterclaim, asserted that based on initial and revised quotations, General Shipping was “very much aware” of the work that would be required to double-coat the tanks of each vessel.
Hammonia further argued that the delays — 35 days for the Weco Madeleine — were caused by General Shipping’s alleged lack of expertise regarding the processing of the selected paint, its lack of manpower and equipment to process work on both vessels in parallel, and its lack of experience regarding the weather in Greece during summer.
Therefore, Hammonia argued, General Shipping had no claim and no cause to arrest the Weco Madeleine.
Hammonia’s Indian solicitors Shashank Agrawal of SSA Legal along with counsel Parth Contractor, told TradeWinds they intend to “vigorously pursue the counterclaim for wrongful arrest of the vessel, damages caused due to the wrongful arrest of the vessel along with other legally permissible claims” against General Shipping.
The Greek company has until 23 February to file its response.
