U.S. Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) published the accepting notification on the latest U.S. "Federal Register" (Vol. 72, No. 72) on Apr. 16th. Armstrong World Industries (AWI) indicted Expeditors International of Washington for the freight rising during the shipping fastigium.
AWI is a floor-board manufacturer. It accused Expeditors International of Washington of collecting three times freight during the shipping fastigium in 2005, which had gone against U.S. "Shipping Act 1984", and claimed for interests and legal fees amounted of USD 216,765.00. Expeditors International of Washington is well known as an ocean transport intermediaries and NVOCC (OTI/NVOCC), and it has provided transportation services for AWI worldwide, including the transportation from Far East to AWI American workshop via the west coast of USA.
According to Attorney Mr. Xinyu Lee in SSSPO (Stein Shostak Shostak Pollack & O'Hara, LLP) Shanghai branch who is specialized in U.S. Customs laws, this case has been assigned to Administrative Law Judge Office. According to the interrelated administrative law, litigants can request Federal Maritime Commission to check if dissatisfied with the first trial result made by an administrative law judge, and the committee also has the right to initiate a checking of administrative law judge’s first trial decision. FMC’s accepting notification means the chief umpire official of this case should promulgate the first trial results before Apr.9th. And U.S. Federal Maritime Commission should release the final judgment before Aug. 7th, 2008.
Whether FMC’s accepting of this case would trigger a large-scale dispute of ocean freight, which is similar as the one in the fastigium, is worth to be paid attention to. Chinese consignor enterprises and international cargo transport enterprises should pay close attention to this case and the result of the trial.
