Hanjin Shipping to Pay Handlers to Unload U.S.-Bound Ships
(excerpted from wsj.com, Sept 9, 2016, by Tom Corrigan)
A lawyer for Hanjin Shipping Co. said Friday that a South Korean court has authorized the company to pay to unload some U.S.-bound ships carrying cargo that has been stranded at sea since the shipping giant filed for bankruptcy last week.
During a hearing Friday morning, Hanjin bankruptcy lawyer Ilana Volkov told Judge John Sherwood of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Newark, N.J., that the company now has the funding and legal permission necessary to offload four ships bound for U.S. ports.
“We do not want to hold on to this cargo,” she said. “We want the customers to get their goods.”
Ms. Volkov says the company had $10 million in a U.S. bank account to pay to service four container-laden ships bound for the U.S. Court papers show a total of 13 ships either owned or leased by Hanjin whose next port of call is in the U.S.
“We’re making a lot of progress,” Ms. Volkov said. “We have the money to fully service those four ships.”
The four ships are Hanjin Greece, Hanjin Gdynia, Hanjin Jungil and Hanjin Boston.
For containers that have already been unloaded and that have been sitting on the tarmac at U.S. ports, Ms. Volkov said the company had been working successfully with cargo owners to get their goods back in the supply chain and to their final destinations.