FMC rules South Carolina port authority immune from complaint

FMC rules South Carolina port authority immune from complaint    The U.S. Federal Maritime Commission has ruled the South Carolina State Ports Authority and Charleston Naval Complex Redevelopment Authority are arms of the State of South Carolina and therefore immune from a complaints that they violated the Shipping Act of 1984.
   Carolina Marine Handling Inc., a Charleston-area stevedore, freight forwarder and steamship agency, said its lease at the old navy piers was cancelled and that it was evicted from the marine cargo handling area.
   The stevedore said an agreement was made between the port authority and another private business that required the navy complex to be used solely for breakbulk or bulk cargo with other types of cargo only to be handled with the port authority’s approval.
   Carolina Marine Handling named private businesses Charleston International Projects Inc. and Charleston International Ports LLC in its complaint. But there has been disagreement about whether the companies even existed at the time the alleged violations occurred, how they are related to each other, and their relationship to a third company called Preventive Automotive Services.
   The FMC said Carolina Marine can continue to pursue part of its complaint against the private businesses, saying “it seems that discovery is warranted to flesh out the “identity of Ports LLC.”
   “The possible overlapping identities of CIP, initially as Preventive Automotive Services, then Projects Inc., and then as Ports LLC, is a genuine issue of material fact that needs to be resolved before a motion for dismissal or summary judgment may be granted. If CMH can demonstrate that Ports LLC is an alter ego of Projects Inc. and Preventive Automotive Services, then Ports LLC could be liable for any conduct of its predecessors that violated the Shipping Act,” the agency said.