US bulker operator Milind Trilokekar is looking to US federal courts to get a $2m arbitration award paid after one of his ships was stuck laden off Panama for months last year with a cargo of wheat with no buyer.
The unlucky travels of the 35,000-dwt Hanze Gendt (built 2012) are being blamed on an official of the Bolivian food import agency Empresa de Apoyo de Produccion de Alimentos (Emapa), who allegedly proposed to do a piece of business with false documentation.
Documents filed by Miami-based charterer Duron claim that Emapa general manager Ramiro Monje Calderon was sacked the day after Duron brought this to the attention of Bolivian development minister Oscar Ortiz.
Duron, controlled by US grain trader Alejandro Duron, had the ship on charter from St Kitts & Nevis-domiciled company Kondot, an affiliate of Trilokekar's New York-based Triworld Shipping, which had chartered it in turn from Russian bulker operator Pola Maritime, an affiliate of the vessel's ultimate owner, Dutch-based Hanzevast Capital.
The business began with a deal in which Duron was to sell Emapa 60,000 tonnes of US wheat through Florida-based commodities broker Ecubol.
Duron chartered the Hanze Gendt, which loaded the first shipment at Houston from US grain trader Hansen Mueller in May 2020 and proceeded for the Peruvian port of Matarani for transshipment to landlocked Bolivia. Duron then chartered the 38,600-dwt Eckert Oldendorff (built 2014) to carry a second cargo from Archer Daniels Midland (ADM).
When the Hanze Gendt arrived at Matarani and Bolivian officials asked for an allegedly illicit arrangement, Duron declined to play ball.
"I refused to consent ... to make any payments that were not disclosed, participate in any arrangement that would result in illegal payments, or back-date documents," Duron said in a US federal court filing.
Duron cancelled the Eckert Oldendorff shipment, paying ADM a $303,000 penalty and Danish operator Falcon Navigation $200,000.
But it was too late for the Hanze Gendt.
Emapa did not buy the wheat, charterer Duron failed to find a proposed new buyer, time-charter operator Kondot did not get paid hire, and Hansen Mueller could not collect more than a fractional payment from Duron.
Kondot agreed to proceed to Venezuela to give Duron a chance to sell the cargo there, but when a promised sum of back hire was not forthcoming, it anchored at Balboa and refused to transit the Panama Canal until it saw some cash.
At the end of July 2020, Kondot declared a repudiatory breach of contract and won an emergency New York arbitration award declaring that it was within its rights to do so.
The Hanze Gendt then returned to Houston and discharged the wheat at the same terminal where it had loaded. The three-month trip to nowhere would otherwise have constituted transport of merchandise between different points in the US — a violation of the Jones Act cabotage law.
In March, Kondot won a final $2m New York final arbitration award against Duron, but US courts have yet to convert that into a judgement.
Trilokekar declined to comment on the ongoing dispute because it is currently the subject of litigation. Alejandro Duron and Bolivia's Emapa did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment.