Dutch offshore and seismic firm Fugro has been ordered to pay $26.8m to John Giddens-led Tasik Subsea in an arbitration over the early termination of the charter of subsea operation vessel Southern Star.
.Fugro terminated the contract for the vessel in 2019, just 22 months into the six-year charter which had commenced in 2017. The vessel had been continuously employed during the charter, however Fugro cited technical failures and design flaws as the reason for cancellation.
Tasik responded with the issue of a notice of defamation demanding an unreserved retraction of the statement from Fugro about the vessel, which it says was made to support its efforts to “wriggle out of” the charter for commercial reasons.
Fugro says it still has a number of outstanding counterclaims against Tasik which will be addressed later this year.
