At the midnight of 20 November, Haikou Maritime Court initiated the cooperative urgent case response mechanism. Through collaboration between the filing division, enforcement bureau, and judicial police, the court successfully enforced and concluded a pre-trial ship arrest case in the early morning the next day.

On the afternoon of the above date, a fuel company applied to Haikou Maritime Court for arresting the vessel “Ever XX”, which was owned by a shipping company and for which it had been supplying a total of 280 tons of fuel whereas the owner had refused to pay for the costs of the fuel, i.e. CNY 1.14 million some, after multiple requests. The applicant also gave the information that the vessel would arrive at Haikou Port for discharge the same night and would depart the next day.

Upon examination, the collegial bench promptly ruled in favour of the arrest and transferred it to the enforcement bureau for action with the assistance of the judicial police team. The enforcement judge verified with the port administration the vessel’s planned time of arrival and discharge arrangements, and decided to arrest the vessel in the next morning.

At 11pm, the updated information given by the port showed that the vessel had arrived at the port at 10:30pm and was estimated to leave at 6am the next morning the earliest after discharge. Learning this information, the leadership of the court instructed that arrest action should be taken immediately. The enforcement officials who had been on standby immediately made way to the site.

When the enforcement judge boarded the vessel at midnight, the vessel was in discharge operations. The enforcement officials served the ruling and pasted up the arrest order, and then took the following action: first, they ordered the ship to adjust subsequent voyages and fulfil the duty of care; second, they requested the ship to move to an anchorage after the discharge in order not to hinder port operations; third, they carefully examined and recorded the vessel’s certificates, logbook, fuel reserve and payment of crew wages. By 02:30am, the arrest was completed efficiently following standard procedures. The high quality and efficiency of the action was fully recognized by the parties concerned. It was another example of Haikou Maritime Court’s persistent effort in maintaining the achievements of “basic resolution of difficulties in enforcement” ever since the start of its “Winter Storm” enforcement action.