In the evening of 30 October 2019, Haikou Maritime Court dispatched officials to Haikou Port to enforce a case concerning maritime injunction on vessel delivery and successfully handed over the vessel in dispute to the applicant of the case. This was the first enforcement case that the court had concluded this winter. It was done in an organized manner and with efficiency, winning high recognition from the parties concerned.
It is known that the applicant, shipping company A in Hong Kong, had entered into a vessel sale and bareboat charter party with the respondent, shipping company B in Hong Kong, in September 2017. It was agreed that the applicant would purchase the vessel “Hai Su 1” from the respondent and then bareboat chartered the vessel to the respondent; the applicant had the right to terminate the contract and take back the vessel in case of arrears of hire. After the execution of the contract, the applicant duly completed the formalities for ownership registration and delivered the vessel to the respondent for use till now. As the respondent failed to pay the 5th installment of hire as agreed, the applicant successively gave a debit note, notice of breach, and notice of vessel withdrawal, notifying the respondent of the dissolution of the contract and requesting the respondent to immediate return the vessel and compensate for loss thus incurred. However, these were ignored by the respondent. As the chartered vessel was mainly used by the respondent for transport on international routes between Haikou and Southeast Asia, it would be impossible to take her back if she left China and did not return to a Chinese port. For this reason, the applicant applied to Haikou Maritime Court on 30 October for a maritime injunction, requesting for the compulsory delivery of the vessel which was berthed in Haikou Port.
After receiving the application, the Filing Division of Haikou Maritime Court immediately initiated the cooperative response mechanism for major cases. Having found the application eligible for filing upon preliminary examination, the Filing Division promptly collaborated with the Enforcement Bureau and communicated with the applicant to set up a channel for information exchange and feedback. Considering the significance of the case, Judge Chen Ming, the head of the Enforcement Bureau, took the responsibility for handling the case. At 14:00 on the same day, the vessel “Hai Su 1” berthed at the container terminal of Haikou Port for discharge. The enforcement judge followed the trend of the vessel closely. After learning that the discharge operations were going fast and the vessel would be leaving the port in light condition the same night, Haikou Maritime Court immediately initiated the round-the-clock enforcement attachment mechanism, and at 18:40 dispatched officials to Haikou Port.
When the officials arrived at the port, the discharge operations of the vessel were close to an end. Accompanied by the applicant’s representative, the enforcement judge boarded the vessel to serve the civil ruling and paste up the maritime injunction, while getting information about and verifying the vessel’s certificates, voyage, departure permit, fuel and water reserves, and payment of crew wages, all in an effort to solve the dispute.
With the court’s reconciliation efforts and patient explanation, the applicant was willing to continue to hire the crew and to dispatch a supervisor on board; the captain on behalf of the crew accepted the applicant’s engagement and undertook to sail to an anchorage and moor there on standby; the parties agreed on further negotiations on resolution of the dispute. Afterwards, the court duly delivered the vessel to the applicant. The compulsory delivery of the vessel took less than three hours.
The applicant chose to apply to Haikou Maritime Court for the maritime injunction although it had been agreed in the contract that any dispute should be referred to Hong Kong Maritime Arbitration Commission for arbitration and in spite of the fact that the vessel would call at ports in multiple countries. This demonstrated its recognition of and trust in the maritime justice and the law-governing, convenient and international business environment of Hainan.