Americas News
OW Bunker: Beginning of the End in Sight for Legal Battle Over Who Bunker Buyers Need to Pay
For well over three years a legal battle in the US has centred on answering the question of who bunker buyers need to pay following the 2014 collapse of OW Bunker.
But the beginning of the end is now in sight, following an opinion delivered last week by an Appeals Court Judge in a test case involving bunkers delivered to M/V Temara, Bruce Paulsen of Seward & Kissel LLP has told Ship & Bunker.
The opinion saw the partial reversal of a 2016 decision that, at the time, was an outlier among similar cases as it denied both the physical supplier and ING Bank (as OW Bunker's assignee) a Maritime Lien.
Circuit Judge Barrington D. Parker's latest opinion now puts the outcome of the case in line with other test case decisions, such as Barcliff LLC v. M/V Deep Blue, in finding that ING is entitled to a Maritime Lien but the physical supplier is not.
"There remain a number of additional pending appeals on this question. There are two in the Fifth Circuit Court, one in the Second that was argued in April, and one in the Ninth that was argued last week," said Paulsen, who represents ING in several of the cases.
"Decisions from the Fifth and Second could come at any time, and the one from the Ninth is expected in the fall. So we have a few more months of appellate but if they all continue to agree [that ING is entitled to a Maritime Lien and physical suppliers are not] then I think the law will be well established.
"There will be some clean up to be done but at that point then I think we're at the beginning of the end."
Legal proceedings in the UK previously reached a similar conclusion - albeit under different law - that ING bank is entitled to be paid the full value of any outstanding bunker bill.
