Logistics, Trade Administration and Supply Chain

By Robert Bowman It wasn't as if it was a huge surprise. Rumors that Hanjin was financially imperiled extended back to 2013. The Korean line sought to restructure its debt in April of last year, then submitted a last-ditch liquidity plan in August for raising an additional $450m. At the time, Hanjin expressed optimism that it could come to terms with creditors while remaining in business. But the Korean government refused to bail out the carrier, the plan was rejected, and Hanjin went into receivership on Sept. 1. Then, on Feb. 17 of this year, a South Korean court declared Hanjin bankrupt, ordering liquidation of its assets. Hanjin left a huge mess to be sorted out. It had 89 ships in service and was involved in some two dozen alliances or vessel-sharing arrangements (VSAs) with carrier partners. Huge amounts of money were owed to terminals, crewmembers and supporting vendors, with total outstanding debt of approximately $6bn. It could take years for them to recover even a fra...

By David Dodwell, SCMP Hanjin Sooho may mean nothing to you or I, but for perhaps thousands of Chinese exporters, the name is currently the source of despair, perhaps panic. As many of us talk abstractly about faltering global trade growth, Hanjin Sooho is the hard distressing reality of the challenge facing global trade for many traders here or in China. Hanjin Sooho is under arrest in Shanghai port – one of 20 or more vessels trapped by the collapse in August of South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping, at least 10 of them in China alone. Hanjin was the world’s seventh largest shipping line, and the first shipping collapse in 30 years. As Hanjin fell into bankruptcy, so its ships – and the cargos in them – have been frozen wherever they sat. As one expert shipper noted: “Ships have been seized. Some are staying out of port to avoid being seized. Some are just puttering around, loaded or unloaded.” Industry experts say more than 500,000 containers are trapped on these ships, with cargos on bo...