The China Post
Date: June 24, 2016
By: CNA

TAIPEI–After five years of red tape, Taiwan has finally recouped NT$38.99 million (US$1.22 million) in outstanding fines from the auction of a South Korean chemical tanker in 2011 following a pollution incident involving another ship by the same owner, Taiwanese authorities said Thursday.

Taiwanese authorities sold the 3,880-dwt Samho Onyx belonging to beleaguered South Korean company Samho Shipping for less than NT$150 million at an auction in August 2011, after two previous attempts to sell the ship that summer had failed, according to the Chiayi branch of the Ministry of Justice’s Administrative Enforcement Agency.

The Onyx was seized in February 2011 by Taiwanese authorities looking to recoup outstanding fees owed by the financially stricken owner. It had been detained in Mailiao Harbor in southern Taiwan’s Yunlin County.

Samho owed more than US$2 million in fines levied for a 2005 chemical spill in Taiwanese waters that involved another vessel owned by the Seoul-based firm — the 3,561-dwt chemical tanker Samho Brother.

Taiwan faced a huge clean-up operation after the vessel, which was carrying 3,100 tonnes of benzene, partially capsized off northern Taiwan’s Hsinchu County in October 2005.     [FULL  STORY]