Shipping: "Welcome to the Hanjin California"
From Splash 24/7:
Frazer Hunt, a partner at Australian law firm Mills
Oakley, taps The Eagles in charting the chaos sparked by the bankruptcy
of South Korea’s largest shipping line.
As we enter the third week following Hanjin Shipping filing for
receivership, let’s review how the various stakeholders handled the
fallout following arrest of
Hanjin California in Sydney and whether there are any lessons to be learned before further containers are discharged from Hanjin Milano which remains anchored off Melbourne awaiting advice from Korea.
“So I called up the Captain…”
Hanjin California was arrested by unpaid bunker suppliers
earlier this month after it berthed at SICT. The terminal discharged
some of the containers and since Hanjin would not be paying any of the
charges, exercised a lien over the containers for the stevedoring costs
and administration charges. Consignees who had already paid freight
were also required to pay these charges to obtain release of their
containers. Still, if you wanted your container…
Then it got a lot more complicated: to secure return of container to
the depot, Hanjin also required a deposit, bond or a solicitors letter
of undertaking that the deposit would be paid on demand.
For a short period, the terminal also required security for the
return of the container. Consignees were then faced with the dilemma
that if they returned the container to Hanjin’s depot, they would lose
their security to the terminal but if they returned the container to the
terminal, then they would lose the security provided to Hanjin.
Fortunately, common sense quickly prevailed and the terminal withdrew
their parallel demand.
“What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise)… bring your alibis…”
Then the port authority got in on the act and asked the consignees to
pay the wharfage costs that would have otherwise been paid by the
vessel.
“There were voices down the corridor, I thought I heard them say… Welcome to the Hanjin California…”
Oh, your container holds dangerous goods? While grappling with the
delays associated with the procedures referred to above and getting
Hanjin to answer the phone, you are then served with a notice from the
port authority to remove the container and threatened with penalties if
it is not removed immediately. The notice then continued “You are
invited to present information on any difficulties encountered in
complying with the permitted time periods on the terminal which may be
taken into account by the port authority when making a determination for
the above alleged offence”.
“Mirrors on the ceiling, the pink champagne on ice…”
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