D'Amico Dry is demanding millions of dollars for alleged default on a freight-forwarding agreement (FFA) signed a decade ago with Paul Coronis-backed Primera Maritime.
The bulker owner owned by Italy's d'Amico Group is suing Primera's Marshall Islands-registered shipowning affiliate Nikka Finance for $4.7m for the crewing agency's failure to pay $1.77m on a contract in 2009.
The nearly additional $3m consists of $1.3m post judgment interest over nine years, $725,954 in lawyer fees and attachment of a Nikka Finance-owned bulker as security for 125% of the overall claim.
The latest suit in the ongoing case has been filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. D'Amico Dry's lawyers in this suit are led by Thomas Rue of Alabama law firm Maynard Cooper & Gayle.
Calls to d'Amico's lawyers and Nikka Finance were not immediately returned.
Almost nine years earlier, Luciano Bonaso-led d'Amico Dry filed an action in US District Court for the Southern District of New York to exact the $1.77m awarded in English court from Romania's Primera Maritime.
At that time, d'Amico Dry added the Coronis family in control of Primera and Nikka Finance, owner of 29,100-dwt bulk carrier Seaglass II (built 2008), as alter-ego defendants in the New York suit.
The defendants filed many motions to dismiss the case, so d'Amico filed an appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to recognise foreign judgment and alter-ego causes.
The case was tried in New York federal district court but dismissed in August 2016 on the ground the court did not have subject matter jurisdiction and the FFA was not a maritime contract.
D'Amico Dry filed a second appeal in the case, prompting the appeals court to reverse the dismissal on 29 March on the premise that the 2008 FFA was a marine contract.
The case was sent back to New York federal district court, where the defendants argued a lack of personal jurisdiction to try the case.
D'Amico Dry asserted that that defence, if applicable, has been waived, yet New York Judge John Koeltl ordered both sides to submit their opposing arguments on this by late July.
Thomas Tisdale, of New York's Tisdale Law Offices, is representing d'Amico Dry in the New York proceedings.
D'Amico said that, according to admiralty law, the claimant needs to have only a maritime claim against the defendants and property within the district.
"The defendant's vessel ... is now, or is very soon to be in the jurisdiction of this honourable court," the suit states.
Changing identities
D’Amico Dry's lawyers claim in the suit that the Coronis family changed the Primera name to Primebulk in 2009 to avoid paying debtors, including d'Amico Dry, following the freight market's collapse.
The suit further states that the family then formed Bulknav as the shareholder of all Primebulk's and the Coronis family's outstanding debt.
Meanwhile, the family continued to own 70% of the shares of its vessel-owning companies by owning 70% of Bulknav's shares through Shelly Ventures. The remainder was owned by silent partners, the suit said.
D'Amico's lawyers assert that Bulknav existed only on paper with no offices, employees or bank account and operated through Primera's and later Primebulk's offices in Athens.
"Bulknav is an alter-ego of the Coronis family and Primera," the suit states.
"Bulknav disregarded corporate formalities by operating as a shell company used by the Coronis family to add another layer of corporate protection for family members."
