ANK successfully represented Greek shipowner

ANK Law Office has successfully protected the interests of ANANGEL HAPPINESS SPECIAL MARITIME, a Greek shipowner, in the case against the ecological inspectorate, which has been recently examined by the Fifth Administrative Court of Appeal.

According to the Resolution on case #420/123/20 dd. 19.05.2021, the court of appeal rejected the appeal of the ecologists and left in force the judgement of the first instance court. The Greek shipowner was forced to take legal action against the ecologists following the detention of m/v “ANANGEL HAPPINESS” in Yuzhnyi port in July 2019, which had been initiated by the ecologists within the “traditional” control of segregated ballast and further letter of claim for alleged pollution of the port water area. A special feature of this case is the record-breaking amount of losses for sea pollution caused by deballasting operations, which has been calculated by the ecologists and reached USD 58 378, and was paid by the shipowner to avoid the vessel’s delay and the losses related thereto. The courts of both instances confirmed the unlawful actions of the ecologists and ordered the ecological inspectorate to repay the aforesaid amount to the shipowner as received without legal grounds. As of today this is the biggest amount of losses awarded by the court in a shipowner’s favor in similar cases.

ANK team in this case was represented by the attorneys-at-law Kostyantyn Moriakov and Nina Kostiuk under the general supervision of the Managing Partner, attorney-at-law Oleksandr Kyfak.