Matson has filed another lawsuit in its years-long battle to knock APL ships competing in the Guam trade out of a government stipend programme.
The Hawaiian containership owner has filed the case against the US Department of Transportation and its Maritime Administration (MarAd) in Washington DC federal district court.
The company is requesting that the court strike the 1,713-teu CMA CGM Herodote (built 2007) from the Maritime Security Program (MSP).
It was added to the programme — which pays owners $5m per ship per year in exchange for the vessels' use in times of war or national emergency — in April as a replacement for the 1,078-teu APL Guam (built 2001).
"As a result of the MSP subsidies, APL is able to offer significantly lower prices than Matson for shipping cargo on the same routes," Matson's lawyers said in a complaint filed on 14 June.
"Matson supports full and fair competition in all of its trade lines, but so long as APL is unlawfully receiving federal subsidies for its operation of the Herodote, Matson is not competing on a level playing field and will continue to incur injury."
APL is not a party to the lawsuit.
Matson alleges that the APL Guam was wrongly entered into the MSP in 2015, as it calls on Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, which counts as a domestic port for the purposes of the government and its contractors.
The New York-listed owner said the MSP originally was restricted to ships in foreign or mixed foreign and domestic trades, and that since 2017, it has been restricted to foreign trades.
Hence, the company said that allowing APL to replace the APL Guam with the CMA CGM Herodote earlier this year is invalid.
Matson, whose chief executive, Matt Cox, once described competition in the Guam trade as an "axe fight", has been challenging the admission of the APL Guam and 1,638-teu APL Saipan (built 2002) into the MSP since 2017.
Matson first moved for administrative review, then filed a challenge in a US appeals court before a 2018 lawsuit in DC federal district court.
The company scored a victory in July 2020, when US District Judge Randolph Moss struck the APL Saipan from the MSP. But it was added back by September, with MarAd reasoning that the Saipan trade would be covered by exemptions.
Neither the Department of Transportation nor APL responded to a request for comment.
In the past, APL has reiterated its belief that the ships are validly part of the programme and its commitment to serving Guam and Saipan.
