No Court Decision on Suez Canal's Claim Over Massive Vessel

CAIRO - An Egyptian appeals court on Sunday said it lacks jurisdiction to consider the Suez Canal Authority's demands to uphold financial claims that led to the seizure of the massive Ever Given ship after it blocked the waterway in March.  

The authority and the ship's owner are in dispute as to whose fault it was that the ship ran aground in the canal linking the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea — and how much compensation should be paid.   The appeals chamber of the Ismailia Economic Court referred the case to a lower court to decide whether the Ever Given can legally be held until the settlement of the compensation claim between the Suez Canal Authority and Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., the ship's Japanese owner, according to Hazem Barakat, a lawyer representing the vessel's owner. The Ever Given was on its way to the Dutch port of Rotterdam on March 23 when it slammed into the bank of a stretch of the canal about 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) north of the southern entrance, near the city of Suez.