BEIJING – An international shipping dispute valued at more than $26.5 million, rooted in a high-seas collision between two foreign-flagged vessels near the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz, has been successfully resolved through court-mediated settlement at a Chinese maritime court, China’s Supreme People’s Court announced Monday.
The 2025 incident involved two commercial vessels owned and operated entirely by overseas entities: the bulk carrier *Adalynn*, registered under the flag of Antigua and Barbuda, and the *Front Eagle*, which flies Liberia’s flag of convenience. The collision occurred in international waters adjacent to the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest and most economically vital maritime chokepoints for global oil trade, in June 2025. No official regional maritime investigation was ever completed into the incident, leaving no formal ruling on fault or liability when the legal process began.
After the collision, the owner of the *Adalynn* petitioned the Guangzhou Maritime Court to take action to arrest the *Front Eagle* while the vessel was docked for scheduled repairs in the southern Chinese port city of Shenzhen. In a step that highlights the growing international trust in China’s maritime judicial framework, both disputing parties voluntarily agreed to submit their conflict to the Chinese court for adjudication and explicitly selected Chinese maritime law as the governing legislation for the case, which carried total claimed damages of 180 million yuan (equivalent to approximately $26.5 million).
Over the course of nearly 10 months between October 2025 and July 2026, the court conducted four structured pretrial meetings to streamline evidence and clarify disputed points, before holding a full public hearing on the case on July 14. Because no official collision investigation had been completed by regional maritime authorities, the court enlisted independent, specialized maritime technical investigators to reconstruct the sequence of events. Presiding Judge Wu Guining explained that the investigative team was able to map the exact movements of both vessels in the lead-up to the collision, which allowed the court to clearly outline the proportional liabilities of each party to the dispute.
Following the court’s liability analysis, the two foreign parties reached a mutually acceptable mediated settlement. By the end of July, the court had overseen the full distribution of the agreed-upon liability compensation fund, bringing the cross-border dispute to a close.
Bilov Viacheslav, a legal representative for the *Adalynn*’s owner, shared that the company intentionally selected the Chinese judicial system to resolve the conflict due to long-standing trust in its transparency and fairness. He specifically commended the court for its efficient handling of the complex international case and the high level of professionalism demonstrated by the maritime technical experts brought in to reconstruct the collision.