Recently, after 48 hours of shuttling between Haikou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai, the judges of Haikou Maritime Court procured the settlement of a marine transportation dispute by arresting a vessel of the respondent according to law.

In a marine transportation dispute between the shipping companies A and B, company A applied with Haikou Maritime Court for enforcement against company B for failure of paying the freight in a sum of CNY1.03 million due to company A according to the effective legal documents. On February 28, the handling judges received a call from the applicant reporting that the ship “* Xing 16” owned by the respondent was berthing at Gaolan terminal of Zhuhai, Guangdong province. The applicant therefore requested the court to arrest the vessel. The judges checked out the message with Zhuhai Maritime Safety Administration and prepared enforcement papers right away. The arrest ruling and warrant of arrest were facsimiled to Zhuhai MSA promptly to solicit assistance for the arrest of “* Xing 16”.

At the same time, the handling judges booked the first flight they could get, ready to fly to Zhuhai on March 1. But just 4 hours before the departure, they received a call from the applicant informing that “* Xing 16” had departed Zhuhai for Yantian terminal of Shenzhen. Upon the message, the judges decided to change the flight to Shenzhen, but unfortunately there was no ticket left. They then changed the flight to Guangzhou where they could take an airport shuttle bus to Shenzhen directly.

When they arrived at Yantian terminal, it was 0200hrs on the early morning of March 2. Since the port was quite big and they could not get in touch with the local maritime department at that moment, it was not easy to find the location of “* Xing 16”. At 0400hrs, the judges decided to have a rest until daylight when they could turn to the local maritime department for help.

At 0600hrs in the light of dawn, the applicant called again to report that the ship had departed Yantian and returned to Gaolan port. The judges had to hurry back to Zhuhai. At 10 o’clock on the morning of March 3, the judges eventually arrested the ship with the great assistance of Zhuhai MSA.

During the ship arrest, the judges learnt that the ship was carrying sands pending for discharge. To reduce the economic loss of the respondent, the judges told the ship that it was allowed to discharge the cargo and berth at the specified anchorage at a later time. The judges’ kindness won the trust of the respondent, which procured a friendly settlement between the parties.

On March 6, the two parties finally reached an agreement upon the coordination of the judges. On the same day, a third party, acting on behalf of the respondent, transferred CNY880 thousand to the bank account designated by the Court as payment for the outstanding debts and enforcement application costs. After confirming the receipt of the enforced amount, the Court released the ship immediately according to law. The enforcement operations were completed with success. Apart from the freight CNY200 thousand yuan paid by the respondent through the previous mediation, the applicant received more than one million for the delayed freight payment in the subject case. The ship also resumed operation quite soon.