Decade-old ship grounding returns to haunt Transnet in US$110m legal battle

TRANSNET National Ports Authority (TNPA) is facing a US$110 million (over R1.83 billion) lawsuit over the running aground of a cargo vessel at its Richards Bay harbour more than a decade ago.

- LOYISO SIDIMBA

MV Smart ran aground in August 2013 near the entrance of the harbour, which led to the vessel losing its cargo.

The owners and underwriters of the MV Smart want to recover damages from TNPA of about US$110m, claiming the loss of the vessel was due to negligence on the Transnet subsidiary's part. The TNPA also faces two other lawsuits - one by the charterer of the vessel (Minmetals Logistics Zhejiang Co. Ltd) and the other by the cargo interests, which is a claim relating to the loss of the cargo of coal it carried at the time. Details of the multi-million U.S. dollar lawsuit emerged at the KwaZulu-Natal High Court where the TNPA sought an order directing the owners and underwriters of the MV Smart to produce certain documents and correspondence for the state-owned entity to inspect them.

The matter for which the disclosure of the documents is required is set down to commence in July next year and is set to be heard for over four weeks. The owners and underwriters of the MV Smart also launched arbitration proceedings against Minmetals Logistics Zhejiang Co. Ltd, in London for substantially the same damages as are claimed against the TNPA.