PANAMA CITY, April 7 (Reuters) – Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison’s Panama unit has launched an arbitration against Maersk after the takeover of two \u200cstrategic ports near the Panama Canal which are at the center \u200cof a legal battle that has embroiled Beijing and Washington.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Panama Ports Company (PPC) said Maersk \u200bbroke a long-term contract by siding with the Panamanian government to help remove PPC from its operations at the Balboa port and replace it with a Maersk-affiliated operator.<\/p>\n
“Contrary to the contract, Maersk undermined the agreement and aligned itself with the Republic \u200cof Panama in connection with \u2060its state-led campaign against PPC and a scheme to replace it through a takeover that installed new port operators,” PPC said \u2060in a statement.<\/p>\n
Panama’s Supreme Court in late January invalidated the legal framework supporting the 1997 concession granting PPC the right to operate the Pacific-facing Balboa and Atlantic Cristobal \u200bterminals \u200bon either side of the Panama Canal.<\/p>\n
By \u200bthe following month, the government had \u200cawarded temporary contracts for subsidiaries of Maersk and the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) to run Balboa and Cristobal, respectively.<\/p>\n
The dispute also complicated CK Hutchison’s planned $23 billion sale of a majority stake in its global ports business to a consortium led by BlackRock and MSC.<\/p>\n
The court ruling followed extended pressure from the Trump administration – which \u200csaid it wants to “take over” the Panama Canal – \u200bto curb what it calls Chinese influence \u200bover the key waterway, which carries \u200babout 5% of global maritime trade.<\/p>\n
Beijing has accused to U.S. \u200cof “bullying tactics” and called on foreign \u200bgovernments to provide a \u200bfair trade environment.<\/p>\n
PPC said the arbitration will take place in London, and that its claim against Maersk is separate from and without prejudice to \u200bits ongoing efforts “to hold Panama \u200caccountable for its anti-contractual and anti-investment conduct.”<\/p>\n
Neither Maersk nor the Panamanian \u200bgovernment immediately responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Elida Moreno; Writing \u200bby Sarah Morland; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PANAMA CITY, April 7 (Reuters) – Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison’s Panama unit has launched an arbitration against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[26752,4166,245,3375,31546,31545],"class_list":{"0":"post-57103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-maersk","8":"tag-arbitration","9":"tag-ck-hutchison","10":"tag-maersk","11":"tag-panama","12":"tag-panamanian-government","13":"tag-ppc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116366597470845917","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57103","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=57103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}