Dalian: Hong Kong-listed Qingdao Port announced that the company and its Dagang Branch have received a writ of summons, a notice of response to action and a complaint from Qingdao Maritime Court.
CITIC Australia Commodity Trading filed the complaint as plaintiff saying that it suffered a severe loss from its unavailability to dispose 223,270 tonnes of sandy metallurgical grade aluminium and 5,003,778 tonnes of electrolytic copper as Qingdao Port and its branch refused to deliver the above cargo to it.
CITIC has requested the court to confirm the legitimate ownership of the cargo, which is currently stored in bonded warehouses owned by Qingdao Port, and to order Qingdao Port to deliver the cargo. CITIC also asked Qingdao Port to compensate about $108m if it fails to deliver the cargo.
Qingdao Port claims that the cargo was stored at Dagang under the name of Qingdao Hongtu Logistics Co, a third party cargo shipment agency and the cargo has been detained by the public security authority as Qingdao Hongtu is currently under a fraud investigation.
Qingdao Port said the company will vigorously contest the allegations. [30/07/14]
