Derek Achong

The crew mem­bers of a Bo­li­vian car­go ves­sel who were left strand­ed in Trinidad since March af­ter be­ing aban­doned by their em­ploy­er, have suc­cess­ful­ly pe­ti­tioned a High Court Judge to sell the ves­sel to cov­er their out­stand­ing salaries, liv­ing ex­pens­es, and repa­tri­a­tions. 

High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad or­dered the sale yes­ter­day as he up­held the law­suit brought by the nine crew mem­bers of the “BT­MAX 1” ves­sel, which still re­mains an­chored off the Port-of-Spain har­bour out­side of Queen’s Wharf. 

In an af­fi­davit, at­tached to the law­suit, deck­hand Trevor Bish­op, from the British Vir­gin Is­lands, claimed that in 2019 he en­tered in­to an agree­ment with two fi­nanciers for them to pur­chase and op­er­ate the ves­sel, which is reg­is­tered in the Port of La Paz in Bo­livia. 

Bish­op claimed that he was giv­en a mi­nor­i­ty share­hold­ing in the com­pa­ny, In­ter Caribbean Ship­ping Lim­it­ed, and agreed to work on-board the ves­sel for a salary un­til the ven­ture be­came prof­itable and he could re­ceive a share of the prof­its. 

He claimed that while he and the oth­er crew mem­bers from Hon­duras, St Vin­cent, Guyana, Grena­da, and T&T, per­formed their du­ties, they were not paid for sev­er­al months and were not pro­vid­ed with pro­vi­sions or sub­sis­tence as re­quired un­der their con­tracts. 

In Oc­to­ber, last year, the ves­sel’s for­mer cap­tain Dal­ton Young, of Hon­duras, fell ill and had to seek med­ical at­ten­tion at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. 

Young was even­tu­al­ly repa­tri­at­ed to his coun­try, where he died. 

Last month, Bish­op and the re­main­ing crew mem­bers filed a law­suit for a war­rant of ar­rest for the ves­sel, which was grant­ed by High Court Judge Ricky Rahim. 

The crew mem­bers then sought to have the ves­sel sold to clear the com­pa­ny’s US$190,507.16 debt to them. The law­suit was not de­fend­ed by the own­ers of the ves­sel and Jus­tice Seep­er­sad even­tu­al­ly grant­ed a de­fault judge­ment, yes­ter­day. 

Un­der the terms of the judge­ment, the ves­sel is to be sold at auc­tion based on a re­serve price set by a lo­cal ma­rine en­gi­neer. 

The pro­ceeds of the sale would be used to pay the nine work­ers in­clud­ing Young and to cov­er the on­go­ing costs as­so­ci­at­ed with main­tain­ing and pre­serv­ing the ar­rest of the ves­sel. 

In is­su­ing the judge­ment, Seep­er­sad com­mend­ed the crew mem­bers’ le­gal team, who as­sist­ed with their plight, and crit­i­cised their for­mer em­ploy­er. 

“A no-tol­er­ance ap­proach to wrong­do­ing and dis­hon­esty in its many man­i­fes­ta­tions has to be adopt­ed. These crew mem­bers were placed in an un­ten­able and un­for­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion and the cal­lous and in­hu­mane way they were treat­ed must be con­demned,” Seep­er­sad said. 

The crew mem­bers were rep­re­sent­ed by Nyree Al­fon­so and Asif Ho­sein-Shah.