Taiwan’s Wan Hai Lines to pay $950,000 in civil penalties as well as refunds of charges in a detention and demurrage case by the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) in Washington DC., which dates back to 2021.
According to FMC, Wan Hai during the spring of 2021, charged unreasonable detention fees at least 21 times. The carrier either offered no return locations, the designated terminal was not accepting the containers’ chassis, or appointments were unavailable for the subject containers.
The customer provided Wan Hai with screenshots verifying these restrictions and requested a waiver. On these 21 instances, Wan Hai charged DET costs using debit notes, with prices per container ranging from USD 125 to USD 1,550.
At first, the Asian shipping company denied the request to waive the charges, claiming that it was unable to waive the charges because it did not control the appointment system.
