Two shipowners are the target of trade creditors that say they were stung by the collapse of Greek-Danish bulker operator Nordia Bulk.

In separate arrest-related cases in US courts, lawyers for Italy's d'Amico Dry Cargo and Greece's Alma Shipmanagement & Trading are taking different legal tacks to avoid being saddled with bunkering and port agent bills that they say Nordia Bulk left behind.

Nordia Bulk was founded in 2009 by Greek shipowner Michael Tartsinis of Antares Shipmanagement and Danish panamax veteran Michael Hojsgaard, who left the company several years ago. Websites for both Nordia Bulk and Antares are now inaccessible.

A cached version of the Nordia Bulk website lists it as owner of a small product tanker, the 6,400-dwt Oana (built 2008). The ship has sailed under the name Seaven Voyager for Greece's Seaven Tanker Management since it was auctioned in 2017.

Hojsgaard did not respond to a request for comment and Tartsinis could not be reached.

Unpaid trading debt

The allegedly unpaid trading debt results from charters last year of the 28,300-dwt Glory Dina (built 2004), which is controlled by an Alma affiliate, and d'Amico's 60,501-dwt Medi Zuoz (built 2017).

Argentine port agent Agencia Maritima Dulce SA and affiliated bunkerer Selgril SA, based in Montevideo, have separately arrested the Medi Zuoz via a New Jersey federal court action.

Their claims, of respectively about $123,000 and $134,000, plus interest and costs, are connected to services and fuel they provided during the ship's October 2018 call at Arroyo Seco in Argentina to load 40,000 tonnes of corn.

The South American creditors told the New Jersey judge that Nordia Bulk is now dissolved, and won a court order to seize the Medi Zuoz when it called at Newark on 3 May.

Lawyers for d'Amico are contesting the arrest.

Bunkers row

Meanwhile, in the case of the handysize Glory Dina, the fight is over funds posted in an arrest that has already happened.

OceanConnect Marine DMCC is claiming it was never paid about $120,000 for a bunkers delivery to the Glory Dina at Istanbul last August. At that time, Nordia Bulk had the ship on a short-term time charter at $11,000 per day from owner Dina Shipping, an affiliate of Alma Shipmanagement & Trading.

OceanConnect arrested the vessel in Portugal in January, and at the time Dina Shipping provided security for the claim, allowing the vessel to sail.

OceanConnect is now trying to receive those funds through a lawsuit in the US federal district court in Maryland, on the basis that Nordia Bulk agreed to submit all contract disputes to the jurisdiction of US courts.

Lawyers for Dina Shipping acknowledged to the court that "upon information and belief, Nordia Bulk had become insolvent and defunct without having paid OceanConnect for the fuel", but are arguing that the charterer's agreement to the bunkerer's terms and conditions do not bind the shipowner.