Samsung seeks record-breaking $186m from FMC over CMA D&D practices
South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung has lodged the largest claim to be put before US maritime regulators at the FMC and is seeking $186m in damages from French carrier CMA CGM over erroneous detention and demurrage charges.
The size of the claim surpasses the $161m in damages sought by Bed, Bath & Beyond administrator Butterfly One from OOCL last year. The FMC eventually awarded the claimant $45m.
Samsung's docket was lodged at the FMC in late August, and claims CMA CGM billed the shipper with excessive and unlawful detention and demurrage charges, as well as reneging on its contractual commitments under "store door" delivery terms - from the beginning of 2020, Samsung had moved from buying freight for its US imports from a port-port basis to a store-door contract, which meant CMA CM was responsible for both the ocean leg to the US and the inland leg within the US.
"SEA [Samsung Electronics America] was forced to pay excessive and unlawful charges assessed by CMA -- known as "demurrage and detention" charges -- and was forced to undertake and perform significant parts of the ocean common carrier's inland transportation responsibilities (responsibilities that CMA had already been paid to perform) in order to obtain delivery and possession of its cargo and continue to import its products sold to American consumers," the claim says, alleging that despite the merging problems with intermodal transport in the US during the pandemic, the carrier "continued to transport SEA goods under store door through bills of lading or sea waybills for inland delivery in the United States, and continued to fail, repeatedly, to perform its inland transportation obligations properly, exposing SEA to unreasonable costs, charges, delays, and other harms".
It further claims that since mid-2020 Samsung had to settle 121,000 individual detention, demurrage and other charges passed to it by CMA CGM, while the carrier often refused to release cargo unless D&D charges had been settled with supply chain third-parties including railroad, container depots and sub-contracted truckers.
In one example, it cited a container booked from South Korea's largest port, Busan, to an inland destination in Texas. The box was unloaded in Long Beach, but there it stayed.
"Although the container was moving under a store door bill of lading, obligating CMA to deliver it to the inland destination, CMA notified SEA that the container was showing as 'merchant haulage' upon arrival.
"CMA later clarified that, due to repeated scheduling changes and unpaid rail storage fees, the store door shipment had been terminated at the rail ramp and SEA was responsible for arranging delivery.
"As a result of CMA's unilateral conversion from door to CY, this container accrued $162,799 in rail storage," the claims says.
A number of other examples, running through to 2024, were also disclosed.
