Shanghai Maritime Court receives gratitude from both of the parties in the same case for safeguarding the people’s livelihood while protecting the private enterprise

Recently, Shanghai Maritime Court received a letter of gratitude and a silk banner of gratitude co-signed by the enforcement applicant and its opposite party, which expressed the parties’ gratitude to the enforcement judges for properly handling a series of enforcement cases of labor contract disputes concerning ship Haike 108 crew members, with their high professional level, patient and perseverant communications and balanced wisdom.

Shanghai Maritime Court achieved the win-win result of safeguarding the people’s livelihood, protecting the enterprise, creating harmony and promoting development, by enforcing the five crew members’ salaries being fully paid and preventing the obligated enterprise from going bankrupt.

In this case, the Panama registered ship Haike 108 is the main asset of the Haikun Shipping Co., Limited, which is registered in Hong Kong by a private enterprise from Taixing, Jiangsu Province. Due to the recession in the shipping market a few years ago, Haikun Company was short of money and couldn’t pay the salaries to some of its crew members. So Li and his four colleagues sued the company demanding the defendant to pay their salaries amount to RMB 250,000 yuan. After hearing the case, Shanghai Maritime Court ruled for the plaintiffs. Haikun Company, however, could not fulfill its obligation due to the persisting recession, and the five crew members applied to the court for enforcement.

The enforcement judges, after investigation, learned that the ship was worth over 10 million yuan, which was far more than the amount of the creditors’ rights, and that, with the shipping market getting better this year, the company showed certain development potential, its business was being improved and it was eager to get some grace period. The judges, considering the applicant’s eagerness to realize their creditor’s rights and the honest attitude plus potential ability of the party under enforcement, communicated with the two parties repeatedly, trying to find a reasonable settlement to the case. The five crew members finally accepted the court’s suggestion to suspend the arrest and auction of the ship and gave Haikun Company some grace period, under the premise of ensuring that ship Haike 108 was controllable. And Haikun Company also promised that it would waste no time in paying the salaries in arrears when the money came in.

Recently, Haikun Company has paid all the arrears to the crew members. Both of the Parties, therefore, are satisfied with the result and thus sent the cosigned gratitude letter and the cosigned gratitude silk banner to the enforcement judges for their proper approaches which brought the win-win situation.