{"id":45804,"date":"2026-03-22T15:54:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T15:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/45804\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T15:54:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T15:54:23","slug":"maersk-loses-appeal-in-us39mn-hin-leong-misdelivery-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/45804\/","title":{"rendered":"Maersk loses appeal in US$39mn Hin Leong misdelivery case"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maersk Tankers has failed to overturn a Singapore court ruling ordering it to pay US$39mn to UOB, after the shipping giant discharged oil cargoes to collapsed trader Hin Leong without original bills of lading (BLs).\u00a0<\/p>\n

The case relates to barrels of gasoil purchased by Hin Leong from fellow trader Winson Oil in early 2020. The cargoes were unloaded by Maersk in Singapore when Winson issued a discharge letter of indemnity, after which Hin Leong applied to Singapore-headquartered lender UOB for a letter of credit to finance part of the purchase.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In order to release payment without waiting for the original BLs to arrive, Winson issued a payment letter of indemnity, a commonly used instrument<\/a> in oil trading. But shortly afterwards, Hin Leong collapsed into insolvency in what became a notorious fraud scandal<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

UOB won a Singapore High Court ruling<\/a> in November last year against Maersk and Winson, claiming that discharging the cargo against the letters of indemnity \u2013 rather than the original BLs \u2013 was a clear case of misdelivery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maersk and Winson appealed that ruling, arguing that the way UOB structured its financing meant it did not genuinely consider the original BLs as security over the cargoes, and therefore had no legal right over them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Denmark-headquartered company previously claimed UOB knew the cargoes had been discharged at the time it issued the letter of credit and did not initially have any concerns, only pursuing the original BLs after Hin Leong\u2019s insolvency.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maersk had argued this action was taken by the bank to contrive a misdelivery claim and minimise its exposure to Hin Leong, and that UOB\u2019s genuine security over the cargoes was in the form of receivables for onward sales that would be assigned in its favour.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But in a Singapore Court of Appeal judgment issued on September 5, a trio of judges found that Maersk\u2019s focus on whether UOB regarded the original BLs as security \u201centirely miss the mark\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The right to delivery of cargo based on holding a valid bill of lading is set out in UK and Singapore law, they ruled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intention with which UOB acquired the [original BLs] is completely irrelevant to and cannot change the nature of the rights that it acquired by operation of law,\u201d they said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The judges added that even if that argument from Maersk had succeeded, they would have disagreed that UOB did not regard the original BLs as security.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is one thing to suggest that UOB did not place primary reliance on the [original BLs], but quite another to suggest that UOB did not regard the [original BLs] as having the intended legal effect, or any legal effect for that matter,\u201d they said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That scenario would essentially be equivalent to UOB extending an unsecured loan to Hin Leong in spite of the terms of the letter of credit, which would not make commercial sense, the judges found.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeal also dismissed a claim from Maersk that damages awarded should be reduced.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maersk argued that the market values of the cargoes should have been calculated at US$28mn-US$30mn. The valuation process involved assessing UOB\u2019s hypothetical ability to sell the cargoes had they not been misdelivered, and was complicated by unloaded occurring on a Saturday, when markets were not open\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maersk also called for a reduction of nearly US$11mn to account for funds recovered by UOB from Hin Leong\u2019s liquidators.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the three judges found the High Court\u2019s assessment of market value to be appropriate, and that the recoveries from Hin Leong are to be considered a separate arrangement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The outcome contrasts with a 2022 case in which UniCredit failed to claim nearly US$25mn<\/a> in damages from shipping company Euronav, after oil cargoes were discharged by ship-to-ship transfers without the presentation of original BLs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Singapore-based lawyer Max Lim, a partner in the marine and trade practice at Penningtons Manches Cooper, the decision in UOB\u2019s case \u201cis a reaffirmation of the orthodox view, namely that original BLs in the hands of a financing bank are its security and regarded by the bank as being of full legal effect\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will take truly exceptional facts and evidence in order to prove that a financing bank does not regard the original BLs as having any legal effect,\u201d he tells GTR.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maersk Tankers and UOB did not comment when contacted.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maersk Tankers has failed to overturn a Singapore court ruling ordering it to pay US$39mn to UOB, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[26023,245,11722,26024,26025,26026,22490,26027,26028],"class_list":{"0":"post-45804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-maersk","8":"tag-hin-leong","9":"tag-maersk","10":"tag-maersk-tankers","11":"tag-max-lim","12":"tag-misdelivery","13":"tag-penningtons-manches-cooper","14":"tag-unicredit","15":"tag-uob","16":"tag-winson-oil"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116273641212184136","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}