On 20 March 2018, officers from the Enforcement Bureau and Judicial Police Team of Haikou Maritime Court managed to arrest a ship outside the court’s jurisdiction against all the odds.

The case involved a dispute between the plaintiff, Cui, and a company in Wuhan in relation to a contract for carriage of goods by sea. According to the judgment made by Haikou Maritime Court in the first instance and the reconciliation brought about by the Higher People’s Court of the province in the second instance, the defendant was obliged to compensate the plaintiff in the sum of CNY 500,000. However, after the settlement paper took effect, the plaintiff only paid part of the compensation and defaulted on the remaining debt. Cui then applied to the court for enforcement. After entertaining the application, the enforcement judge promptly inquired about the assets of the judgment debtor via the online inquiry and control system. It was found that the judgment debtor owned two vessels, namely “Hong Xiang XX8” and “Hong Xiang XX9”. The responsible judge gave a ruling on enforcement, which was ignored by the judgment debtor. Moreover, arrest was impossible because the ships could not be located. The case thus reached a deadlock.

On 13 March, the enforcement judge used the AIS to track the vessel “Hong Xiang XX8” and found that she was sailing to Haikou from Fangchenggang, Guangxi. The judge then called the traffic management centre of Haikou Maritime Safety Administration and requested them to track the ship in real time once she had entered Qiongzhou Strait channel. Efforts were also made to get required legal documents in place for promptly arresting the ship once she pulled into Haikou. However, instead of pulling into Haikou, the ship sailed across Qiongzhou Strait towards the Pearl River Basin in Guangdong.

The responsible judge continued to track the ship with the help of the internet. Through big data comparison, it was found that the recent voyages of the ship were between Foshan, Guangdong and Fangchenggang, Guangxi. The responsible judge assessed it was likely that the ship would again sail from Foshan, Guangdong to Fangchenggang, Guangxi. After three days of monitoring, the ship was finally located in the early morning of 19 March on her way across Qiangzhou Strait towards Fangchenggang, Guangxi.

Pressed for time and unable to obtain the ship’s inbound prediction after multiple inquiries, the enforcement judge took decisive actions by requesting help from Fangchenggang Division of Beihai Maritime Court while flying to Fangchengport for the arrest. With the positive assistance provided by Fangchenggang Division, the judges and judicial police of Haikou Maritime Court arrested the ship in the early morning of 20 March, giving a perfect ending to the ship tracking that had lasted for nearly one week.

The “ambush” took the judgment debtor by complete surprise. Under the pressure of the arrest, the judgment debtor came to Fangchenggang Division early in the next morning at the agreed time to negotiate with the court. Through the conciliation presided by the responsible judge, the judgment debtor promptly reached a settlement about enforcement with the enforcement applicant and fulfilled its obligations on the same day. The case was thus concluded successfully.