Derek Achong

A mar­itime re­pair com­pa­ny, based in Ja­maica, has in­voked the ju­ris­dic­tion of the lo­cal courts to help re­solve its dis­pute with a for­mer client over un­paid fees. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that ear­li­er this month, Ger­man Ship Re­pair Ja­maica Lim­it­ed ap­plied for and ob­tained an ar­rest war­rant against the gen­er­al car­go and con­tain­er ship “Mabrooka”. 

Ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny’s court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, it is claim­ing that the own­ers of the ves­sel, Pana­ma-based Mabrooka Trad­ing, and Mar­itime Trans­port Com­pa­ny, owes it US$201,000 for re­pairs it re­cent­ly per­formed on the ves­sel. 

Last month, the com­pa­ny ap­plied for an ar­rest war­rant in Guyana’s Supreme Court as the ves­sel was in that coun­try’s wa­ters at the time.

How­ev­er, it could not ex­e­cute it as its satel­lite track­ing sys­tem was not func­tion­ing. 

“This sug­gests that the Mas­ter of the ves­sel has switched off their “AIS” sys­tem and is at­tempt­ing to evade le­gal process,” the com­pa­ny’s lawyers Nyree Al­fon­so and Asif Ho­sein-Shah said in their court fil­ings. 

A sim­i­lar ap­pli­ca­tion was filed lo­cal­ly af­ter the ves­sel was dis­cov­ered docked in Pointe-a-Pierre as it en­gaged in bunker­ing. 

The ar­rest war­rant was even­tu­al­ly grant­ed by High Court Judge Kevin Ram­cha­ran on June 8 and the ves­sel re­mained un­der the con­trol of the Ad­mi­ral­ty Mar­shall. 

The com­pa­ny ini­tial­ly de­mand­ed $350,000 in se­cu­ri­ty to re­lease the ves­sel, how­ev­er, at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the ves­sel’s own­ers sub­se­quent­ly made an ap­pli­ca­tion for bail to be set by a court pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of le­gal pro­ceed­ings be­tween the par­ties.

Af­ter a brief vir­tu­al hear­ing yes­ter­day morn­ing, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad grant­ed an or­der per­mit­ting the re­lease of the ves­sel pro­vid­ed that its own­ers pro­vide a US$270,000 se­cu­ri­ty bond. 

Seep­er­sad al­so grant­ed an­oth­er or­der per­mit­ting the tem­po­rary re­lo­ca­tion of the ves­sel to Port-of-Spain, pend­ing re­lease, as the ves­sel’s own­er claimed that it was in­cur­ring high­er dai­ly fees whilst docked in Pointe-a-Pierre. 

“The po­ten­tial sav­ing by shift­ing the ves­sel to Port-of-Spain is there­fore like­ly to be in the re­gion of US$500 a day or more,” the ves­sel’s lawyers said in their court fil­ings. 

The ves­sel’s own­er al­so in­di­cat­ed that de­spite its ap­pli­ca­tion, it would be still de­fend­ing the claim. 

“The de­fen­dant re­serves the right to sub­mit that the ar­rest of the ves­sel is wrong­ful and out­side the ju­ris­dic­tion of this Ho­n­ourable Court, that the quan­tum of the claim is over­stat­ed, and the se­cu­ri­ty de­mand­ed ex­ces­sive,” they said. 

The ves­sel’s own­er is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, Sta­cy Ben­jamin-Roach and Cur­tis Cave.