A 13-year-old suezmax was successfully auctioned by Namibia’s High Court on Thursday.

Ten bidders registered to take part in the online auction of the 158,000-dwt Marvin Star (built 2009), according to an official at Solution Strategists, the South African auction firm arranging the sale.

The preferred bidder, who remains undisclosed, offered $26.4m.

That may seem low when compared with an estimate by VesselsValue that the South Korean-built ship is worth about $30m at the moment. The sale looks better against estimates by MSI Horizon, which calculates that the Marvin Star’s average value for the current quarter is between $25.2m and $29.3m.

On the other hand, the price seems firm when taking into account that the Marvin Star was idling for almost a year and that it’s also the object of a legal controversy.

A first attempt to auction the ship in November 2021 was blocked by a unit of Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), which claims that it fraudulently lost control of the ship from its last registered owner, who ultimately defaulted on it.

TradeWinds has seen e-mail correspondence showing that IRISL tried to scare off potential buyers from bidding for the Marvin Star in the 2 June auction.

IRISL threats that it will continue chasing the vessel, however, have lost much of its force after Cypriot judges threw out legal action the Iranian company brought against another tanker in a similar case in Cyprus.

As TradeWinds extensively reported since last year, various IRISL-controlled units have laid claim to four vessels formerly managed by Greece’s Marvin Shipping, which denies any wrongdoing.

Two of the ships, the Marvin Star and the 50,000-dwt Marvin Independence (built 2018), have now been sold to third parties.

IRISL, however, successfully blocked auctions scheduled last year in Rotterdam for the 50,000-dwt Marvin Confidence and Marvin Faith (both built 2018). To achieve this, IRISL paid the two ships’ creditors and seafarers out of its own pocket to settle their claims.

The Marvin Star was arrested in the port of Walvis Bay in August 2021 following an application by private-equity financier Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB as collateral agent and ACT Maritime LLC.