Ship Arrest
The detention of a ship ordered by a court at a maritime creditor's request, to obtain security before any trial on the merits, often lifted by a letter of undertaking from the P&I club.
Ship arrest allows the holder of a maritime claim (collision, cargo damage, salvage, supplies, wages) to have the ship detained in port until adequate security is posted. It answers the problem of the unreachable debtor: the owner is often a single-ship company registered under a distant flag, and the ship is its only asset. The 1952 Brussels and 1999 Geneva conventions frame the list of eligible claims and allow, in some cases, the arrest of a sister ship. In practice, the arrest is lifted by a letter of undertaking from the P&I club or the hull insurer, and the trial on the merits can then take years. For the insurer, arrest has an immediate cost: idle time, port charges, and pressure on the settlement amount, since every day the ship sits detained raises the price of the deal.
On April 13, 2021, the Economic Court of Ismailia ordered the arrest of the Ever Given at the request of the Suez Canal Authority, after the ship had blocked the canal from March 23 to 29; the Authority claimed $916 million, later reduced to $550 million, and the ship was released only on July 7, 2021 after a settlement whose amount was not disclosed.
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