US judge throws out Foremost Group’s Miami effort to seize repair yard’s funds

A judge in Miami has rejected a request by an affiliate of Foremost Group to seize funds in a dispute with an Argentine repair contractor.

The case is one of two filed in the US over the repair of the New York shipowner’s 85,000-dwt bulker En May (built 2017) after it struck a bridge on the Parana River.

Foremost Group affiliate and Argentine yard locked in spat over bulker repair

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As TradeWinds reported on Friday, registered owner En May Maritime lodged a lawsuit in a federal court in New York alleging that ship repair contractor Proios completed work on the kamsarmax bulker 77 days after the ship was supposed to have been delivered, leading to a number of associated costs.

The repair company’s president, Jorge Proios, has rejected the claims, telling TradeWinds they are “a lie”.

It has since emerged that En May Maritime’s lawyers at firm Fowler White Burnett also filed papers in the District Court for the Southern District of Florida seeking to seize the $1.84m.

But US District Judge Roy Altman took only a day to throw out the request.

He cited a requirement for an asset seizure called a Rule B attachment, where the assets must be within the court’s district.

“One problem: En May’s evidence demonstrates that Proios’ property is not found within this district. Its counsel tells us as much,” Altman wrote in a three-page order.

En May Maritime had been seeking to seize funds at Interaudi Bank, but the judge cited information from the company’s lawyers that the details for the funds were actually associated with its location in New York.

The case in New York remains open. It has been assigned to district judge Kevin Castel.

As the dispute between Foremost and Proios continues, the en May remains in Argentine waters of the Parana River, and three sources with knowledge of the case said the ship was arrested in the wake of the bridge strike as part of a case in the Federal Court of Campana.

In August, a judge with the same court ordered the prosecution of Argentine pilot Jorge Eugenio Falcon, who was in command of the En May when it hit the bridge, and the ship’s master, Deng Wei.