Singapore’s Sembcorp Marine has announced that subsidiary PPL Shipyard and Marco Polo Marine’s Marco Polo Drilling have reached a settlement agreement over a jackup rig cancelled by Marco Polo in November 2015.
Marco Polo cancelled its order for the Pacific Class 400 jackup blaming the yard’s “failure to comply with certain of its material contractual obligations”. However, the yard believed the sudden termination was because Marco Polo was looking to avoid the second downpayment on the rig, worth $21.43m. A war of words and legal action between the two companies led to an arbitration being sought in April 2016.
The settlement has been made on a without admission of fault or liability basis on the terms that a consent award be entered into in favour of PPL for the whole of its claim and interest in the arbitration proceedings, and with Marco Polo withdrawing their own respective claims.
Marco Polo Marine has been undergoing a restructuring since April.
