ODESSA, SEPTEMBER, 26TH, 2008, CONTEXT-PRICHERNOMORIE — Bulgarian court released the motor ship “Moldavia” which belongs to the public corporation “Ukrainian Danube steamship company” (Izmail town, Odessa region), which was detained in the port Lom on September 21st, IA «Context-Prichernomorie» correspondent reports.

This is mentioned in the official report of the company from September 25th.

According to the report, on September 21st, the motor ship “Moldavia” with 140 passengers on board (mainly citizens of Germany), which was going on the route “Passau – Izmail – Vilkovo – Passau”, was detained by the Bulgarian port Lom director on the ground of the application of the lawyers of the company Marine Energy Trading Company (METCO).

Immediately after the arrest of the ship the company Trans Ocean (Germany), under the contract of which the motor ship was going on the route, had to transfer the tourists to Varna airport by buses and send them to Germany.

On September 24th having studied METCO claims, the court recognized the arrest of the ship to be illegal.

As it is noted in the report, the court took into account the documents which testify liabilities of METCO itself to “Ukrainian Danube steamship company” on freight contracts, which exceed the amount of the debt on compensation of which METCO insists.

Damages for 5 day demurrage (with no account taken for damage caused to the company reputation) are evaluated by the company in 50 thousand EUR.

“This incident threatened long-term agreements of UDSC with European travel agencies. As it is known, traditionally subjects of the steamship business avoid arrests of vessels with passengers when solving arguments. Such steps harm people, that are not privy to the arguments, and are considered to be unethical”, the president of the steamship company Evgeniy Samoshin notes.

INQUIRY: The public corporation “Ukrainian Danube steamship company” (PC “UDSC”) was founded in November 1944 as the Soviet Danube State steamship company. The modern status of the oublic corporation was acquired by the steamship company in December 1994. The company is situated in Izmail town. The transport fleet of PC “UDSC” consists of 35 sea dry cargo ships (including 10 ships of mixed navigation), 80 river pusher tags, 19 river automotive cargo ship pushers, 250 non-self-propelled barges and sections, 11 passenger vessels. The total tonnage of the whole fleet of PC “UDSC” makes up about 1 mln t.