Food Importer Responsible for $2 Million in D&D Charges, Carrier Tells FMC
Food importer Bakerly failed to establish that carrier Seafrigo USA violated shipping regulations in its complaint to the Federal Maritime Commission last year, Seafrigo told the FMC this week, adding that the importer's reasons for avoiding paying detention and demurrage charges "cannot withstand scrutiny." New Jersey-based Seafrigo asked the FMC to "reject" Bakerly's complaint and "hold that Bakerly is responsible" for more than $2 million in demurrage and detention charges that Seafrigo "paid on its behalf."
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Bakerly, based in Pennsylvania, had filed the underlying complaint in July 2022 alleging that Seafrigo charged it more than $2 million in unfair detention and demurrage from December 2020 to January 2021. Bakerly said the fees should never have been assessed because they were actually charges from marine terminal operators and steamship lines that were the responsibility of Seafrigo.
In its May 31 response, Seafrigo said Bakerly never objected to paying detention and demurrage charges to the terminal operators until it experienced a significant increase in detention and demurrage charges resulting from "problems with Bakerly’s own system of warehouses" and "supply chain disruptions" caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Seafrigo also said that Bakerly's "denial" of responsibility for detention and demurrage charges was contrary to Seafrigo’s express tariff terms, its bill of lading terms and conditions, the "carefully crafted Negotiated Rate Agreements (NRAs)" between both sides, the two parties' "longstanding billing and payment practices" and "the well-established practice in the industry."
All of this indicates that Bakerly "is liable for detention and demurrage charges," Seafrigo said. If it had not paid the MTOs and Vessel-Operating Common Carriers, Seafrigo added, the containers would not have been released and Bakerly "never would have received the goods."
"It speaks volumes that while Bakerly now asserts that it never had an obligation to pay detention and demurrage charges, it nowhere addresses in its lengthy Opening Brief, Proposed Statements of Facts, or in its voluminous Appendix that it expressly agreed to do so in the carefully negotiated NRAs," Seafrigo said.