The Federal Maritime Commission has received complaints against Israeli shipping carrier ZIM and Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC), the latest in a series of cases involving companies including CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, HMM, Maersk, Ocean Network Express, Wan Hai and Yang Ming.
According to industry news sources, Samsung Electronics America (SEA) filed against ZIM for more than 2,000 demurrage charges and more than 7,000 detention charges it received from the company since 2020. Meanwhile, a California-based logistics business (since dissolved) MVM said MSC levied US$800,000 in charges and then prohibited it from entering its terminal, costing it 95 per cent of its business.
The FMC has warned carriers and terminal operators about excessive detention and demurrage (D&D) charges, as a post-lockdown boom in container shipping caused reservation and capacity issues.
As well as D&D, the latest round of complaints cite failure to complete delivery services, threats and failure to deal, which are all breaches of the 2022 Ocean Shipping Reform Act.
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