FMC JUDGE DISMISSES CLAIMS AGAINST APL

FMC JUDGE DISMISSES CLAIMS AGAINST APL    A magistrate in the Federal Maritime Commission’s administrative law commission has dismissed claims relating to 517 of 554 shipments that American President Lines from the United States to Guam that allegedly violated the Shipping Act of 1984.
   The government of Guam and other complainants had asked for reparations for the alleged violations. Judge Frederick Dolan dismissed the complaints for a number of reasons, according to Dennis Bryant, an attorney for Holland & Knight in Washington, D.C., “the most significant being that, for many of the shipments, the complainant was not the party that paid the shipping charges.
   “The judge followed the long-standing rule that in complaint cases involving alleged overcharges, only the person who paid the freight to the carrier has standing to recover reparations for injury,” Bryant said. A secondary party doesn’t have such standing, even if it ultimately bore the cost of the overcharging.