Through nearly three months’ efforts in reconciliation, Haikou Maritime Court has successfully tried and concluded a series of five cases concerning crew employment disputes and helped five crew members recover arrears of wages in the sum of around CNY 300,000.

In these cases, the defendant, a construction company in Zhejiang, fell in arrears of wages and five crew members brought actions before Haikou Maritime Court, requesting for confirmation of their lien on the vessels on which they served for their claim for wages. After entertaining the cases, Haikou Maritime Court promptly served by post the statements of claim, notification of litigation rights and obligations, other pre-trial documents, and the plaintiffs’ evidence on the defendant at its registered address, but the service was not received after two attempts. Through investigation, it was found that the two vessels on which the plaintiffs worked were inland vessels and had been distrained by another court due to disputes over debts. And they had been berthed in the waters to the east of Century Bridge since 2016. The exercise of a maritime lien was subject to the auction sale of the vessel on which the lien was held. However, according to relevant legal provisions, a maritime lien could not be held for any claim for wages in connection with inland vessels. For this reason, even if a vessel was auctioned off, her crew might not be able to recover their wages as existing bank claims had the priority. Based on these conditions, the collegial bench considered it difficult to exercise the plaintiffs’ claims even if they supported the plaintiffs and directly ordered the defendant to pay their wages.

In order to duly protect the plaintiffs’ lawful rights and interests, judges of Haikou Maritime Court did not settle with simple judgment for the sake of conclusion of cases. Instead, they actively facilitated negotiations between the plaintiffs, the defendant and the defendant’s creditor bank. Through these reconciliation efforts, the three parties eventually agreed on a settlement. The five crew members recovered their arrears of wages and withdrew the cases from Haikou Maritime Court. The series of disputes were thus successfully resolved.