Concrete blocks at the price of copper – the Stournaras v Maersk case

Port of Piraeus, 2019. A Greek importer is waiting for three shipments of copper scrap purchased from a Dubai-based supplier. The goods have been paid for. The bills of lading are clean—no annotations regarding defects, discrepancies, or reservations. Everything that should match, matches on paper.

The containers are opened.

There is no copper inside. Only concrete blocks.

The number that was in the system from the start

This entire story hinges on a single discrepancy—one that existed in the documents long before anyone opened the container doors.

The shippers provided the carrier with shipping instructions declaring the cargo weight. Regardless, at the port of loading in Dubai, the terminal operator, DP World, weighed the containers and issued VGM (Verified Gross Mass) certificates, which have been mandatory since 2016 under the SOLAS convention.

The actual weight of the containers was, in total, about 40 percent lower than the weight declared by the shippers.

Forty percent. Not a rounding error. Not a difference resulting from humidity or tare. A discrepancy where cargo declared as 10,000 kilograms of copper actually weighs around 2,000 kilograms—an example later used in court.

Both figures were in the carrier's systems. No one compared them.

A verdict that didn't go the way everyone expected

The importer first went where they should have: to a court in Dubai, against the shippers. They obtained a default judgment but were unable to enforce it because the shippers could not be located.

They then filed a lawsuit against the carrier in an English court. The argument: the carrier issued clean bills of lading despite a significant discrepancy between the weight declared by the shippers and the VGM data; they should have noticed this discrepancy and either annotated the bills of lading or not issued them at all.

On October 7, 2024, the English Commercial Court issued a judgment in the case of Stournaras Stylianos Monoprosopi EPE v Maersk A/S, concerning the vessel Maersk Klaipeda, case no. [2024] EWHC 2494 (Comm).

The claim was dismissed.

The court did not find that the discrepancy was irrelevant. On the contrary, it acknowledged that such a significant difference between the bill of lading weight and the VGM weight could justify the suspicion that the bill of lading was being used as a tool for fraud. The court also indicated that if the consignee had managed to prove that the carrier knew or should have known about such a discrepancy at the time of issuing the bill of lading, they would have had strong grounds to argue that the carrier should not have issued a clean bill of lading—or should not have issued one at all.

However, the case failed on the findings of fact. In the court's view, the carrier had no reason at the time to suspect that the data provided by the shippers was false—and consequently, there was no obligation to cross-reference the declared weights with the VGM data.

What is the actual purpose of VGM?

The crux of the ruling concerns the original purpose behind the creation of the VGM system.

The court held that the SOLAS/VGM regime was designed for safety and stowage planning, not for fraud detection—and that at the time, there was no widespread industry belief that discrepancies between VGM and declared weight could signal fraud against the consignee. The responsibility for verifying a container's gross mass lies with the shipper, and the purpose of this obligation is safe loading and transport, not screening cargo for abuse. The court refused to extend the carrier's duties to include detecting fraud based on VGM data.

A point also emerged that clearly illustrates how market practices are changing. The court's findings show that the carrier changed its procedures at the turn of 2020, following an incident where a stack of containers collapsed on one of its ships and it turned out that the actual weight of one of them significantly exceeded the declared weight. Only then were solutions introduced to limit incorrect VGM declarations.

Lawyers commenting on the verdict point out that in a case involving a shipment carried out in 2024 or later, the ruling might have been different—many carriers have implemented VGM cross-checks in recent years and impose penalties on shippers in the event of discrepancies.

The other side of the verdict: who paid the costs?

However, that is not the end of it. The carrier filed a counterclaim for indemnity—and the court granted this claim.

The basis: the carrier's losses resulted from the shippers' breach of warranty regarding the accuracy of the information provided in the bills of lading. Liability for these losses also extended to the consignee—jointly and severally—due to the broad definition of the term "Merchant" in the carrier's bill of lading terms.

It is worth pausing here, as this is the part most often overlooked when reading terms of carriage. The definition of "Merchant" in standard container line bills of lading usually includes the shipper, the consignee, the holder of the bill of lading, the cargo owner, and anyone acting on their behalf—all of them collectively and each of them individually. A consignee who has been defrauded by their own supplier falls under this definition just as much as the supplier does.

The copper that never was

This case is not isolated, and it is worth comparing it with another, earlier one—because together they provide a complete picture.

In the case of Engelhart CTP (US) LLC v Lloyd's Syndicate, [2018] EWHC 900 (Comm), a buyer under CIF terms filed a claim under an open all-risks policy when it turned out that the containers held slag of negligible value instead of copper bars.

The court dismissed the claim. The reasoning: the purpose of marine all-risks cargo insurance is to cover the loss of or damage to property—and in this case, neither of these events occurred because the copper cargo never existed, so there was nothing that could have been physically lost or damaged.

These two judgments can be summarized in one sentence worth remembering: a cargo policy protects against damage to goods, not against the fact that the goods never existed.

What does this mean for a Polish importer?

The case took place in London, and the cargo was moving from Dubai to Piraeus, but the pattern is exactly the same for every container ordered from a distant market from a supplier known primarily through correspondence.

First: VGM data is available and free of charge. You can obtain it from your freight forwarder and compare it with what the ordered goods should weigh. It is a simple calculation—volume, density, declared quantity—and a discrepancy of several dozen percent is a signal that is visible without any special tools. The court ruled that the carrier had no obligation to do this at the time. That does not mean it is not in your interest to do it yourself.

Second: a clean bill of lading is not a confirmation of a container's contents. The carrier confirms what it sees on the outside—the container, the seals, the condition of the packaging. With an FCL container, loaded and sealed by the shipper, no one checks inside along the way. The bill of lading describes what the shipper has declared.

Third: pre-shipment inspection is cheaper than legal proceedings in a foreign jurisdiction. An independent check at the supplier's facility before the container is loaded and sealed—including photos, weighing, and verifying the quantity and type of goods—costs a fraction of the cargo's value. A default judgment against a contractor who cannot be located costs nothing, because it is worth nothing.

Fourth: it is worth reading the definition of "Merchant" in the bill of lading terms you are using. This definition determines who can be held liable for costs and claims resulting from incorrect data—even if you were not the one who provided that data.

Fifth: the risk of contractor fraud is a different category of risk than transport risk and requires different tools. A cargo policy covers damage to goods. Protection against supplier dishonesty comes from: contractor verification, inspections, payment structures (letters of credit with appropriate documentation, payment after inspection), and in some cases, trade credit insurance.

The Moral

In this text, we are not judging either party—we are relying solely on the findings and reasoning of the courts. It is worth noting, however, what this case says about the system.

The information that could have stopped the entire operation existed. It was generated, recorded, and transmitted. It sat in the carrier's system right next to the other figure it didn't match. However, no one had the obligation to compare these two figures, because each was created for a different purpose.

This is the same mechanism we described regarding the MSC Flaminia in Dark Stories #4, just with the opposite sign. There, critical information did not reach where it should have. Here, it did reach its destination—and sat quietly nearby, unnoticed, because no one asked the question it answered.

In the supply chain, data is rarely the problem. The problem is who has the obligation to look at it.

Our previous publications from the "Dark Stories" series

‍

Sources

Factual and legal status as of July 2026. This article presents the findings and reasoning of the courts in the described cases; it does not contain an assessment of the conduct of any party. The court's remarks regarding the obligation to reconcile VGM data were non-binding (obiter dictum), and market practice in this regard has since changed.

‍

Want to better plan your supply chain?

Our experts will help you select a transport solution tailored to your destination, cargo type, and operational priorities. Call us at +48 720 803 853 or email us directly at biuro@insphera.pl.

Concrete blocks at the price of copper - Dark Stories #13