Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – The ship owner demands the Polish shipyard to pay out USD 120m for three ships it failed to deliver.
Stocznia Gdynia, the Polish shipyard owned by the Ministry of the Treasure and its subsidies, was expected to get out of the red. Its GSM has agreed to increase the equity by up to PLN 500m (EUR 123.5m), the state-owned shipyard agency KPS is to lend it PLN 19m to build one of the ships while another state-owned agency ARP is borrow it PLN 60m for current operations. However, “TradeWinds”, the sector magazine, wrote that the Polish company faces difficulties due to London arbitrary proceedings. Gearbulk, a shipping company owned by Norwegian family of Kristian Gerhard Jebsen and Japanese Mitsui OSK Lines, accused the Polish group had failed to deliver three out of six ships ordered. Gearbulk demands USD 120m of compensation.
The representatives of the shipyard stress that the company could not build the ships because it did not have money.
“We were negotiating with Gearbulk the way we did with other companies. We have managed to reach settlement with all ship owners except from Gearbulk. We have bought the materials for their ships and we are ready to build for them but at market prices and at the current schedule”, Dariusz Adamski, the member of the supervisory board and the head of Solidarnosc trade union in Stocznia Gdynia shipyard said.
The company would have met the deadlines, had it received funds promised by the state. It received PLN 80m but too late to build the ships on time.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.247)