A court in Singapore has made a winding up order against Emas Offshore’s subsidiary Lewek Champion over debts related to vessel charter.
Namely, Hai Jiang 1401, the owner of the pipelay construction vessel Lewek Champion and a unit of China’s ICBC Financial Leasing, last March terminated a charter agreement with Emas’ subsidiary for the Lewek Champion vessel after the charterer defaulted to make payment of the sum of $1.58 million.
The owner of the vessel also demanded a payment of the termination sum of $194.5 million from the charterer and Emas’ parent company and the guarantor under the charter, Ezra Holdings, within fifteen business days from the date of termination.
Further reasons behind the charter termination included the Chapter 11 filing by the sub-sub-charterer of the vessel EMAS Chiyoda Subsea and the voluntary liquidation of the sub-lessee EMAS-AMC.
As no payment was made, Hai Jiang 1401 filed the winding up application with the High Court of Singapore in May.
Following the application, Emas Offshore informed on Wednesday, July 26 that the winding-up application against Lewek Champion Pte Ltd was heard before the High Court of Singapore on July 14.
At the hearing, the court made orders that a winding up order be made against Lewek Champion and that Andrew Grimmett and Lim Loo Khoon , both care of Deloitte & Touche LLP, be appointed as joint and several liquidators of Lewek Champion.
According to Emas, based on the unaudited consolidated financial statements of the group for the financial period ended November 30, 2016, the company owed $68.8 million to Lewek Champion. Accordingly, the winding up order made against Lewek Champion may result in a material impact on the financial position of the group.
Offshore Energy Today Staff