News / MSC and FedEx face $11m fine for 'unfair charges' to shipper

FedEx and MSC face up to $11m in fines from the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) following a complaint of unfair charging practices.

Airboss Defense Group (ADG) alleges that FedEx Trade Networks Transport (FTN), MSC and terminal operator Total Terminals International (TTI) failed to supply invoices or information relating to its shipments.

Among information ADG claims was withheld were details of disputed detention & demurrage charges, and the location of 202 of its containers after US Customs imposed a hold on them in November 2021, because “unlicensed” ocean transport intermediary McWilliams Collective – moving the goods for FTN – lacked a US tariff or bond.

ADG asserts that 62 of the imported boxes were held at TTI’s terminal, 135 were sent to a Customs examination site and five were purportedly held by a firm sub-contracted by ITS Logistics, which itself had been contracted by FTN.

Amidst all the confusing surrounding the location of the boxes, the US Customs & Border Patrol agency (CPB) informed ADG that the content of the boxes would not be allowed entry into the US and must be returned to the country of origin. And ADG then discovered it had been billed more than $11.3m in D&D charges to be paid before the cargo could be released.

After much confusion over who should be paying whom, despite what ADG claims were its “best efforts”, FTN and MSC failed to export the boxes before a CBP cut-off time, and the goods were destroyed over a nine-month period to July 2023.

ADG then found itself facing D&D charges for the nine months, while the respondents held onto the boxes during the destruction period.

All of which, the shipper claims amounts to the respondents breaching the Shipping Act’s requirement that operators “must establish, observe, and enforce, just and reasonable practices”.

The case continues.