Recently, the case-filing division of GZMC received an application for preservation of maritime evidence on a Cyprus ship named M/V PANAMAX AUSTRASIA, due to a general average dispute. The claimant, as the domestic consignee of the cargo carried by the ship, was requested to contribute the loss caused by a grounding accident during the voyage by the ship owner. In order to preserve the evidence relevant to the accident, the claimant filed the application above.

After examining the materials, the case-filing division accepted the application and made an order to adopt measures for preservation of the maritime evidence on September 29, 2021. During the execution of the order, the ship owner stated that they needed time to prepare paperwork. Since the ship planed to depart after unloading the goods during the National Day’s holiday, the owner requested the court to check the evidence to be preserved before its departure. Considering that shipment delay will cause great loss, the staff of case-filing division decided to execute the preservation by giving up their National Day’s holiday. After communicating back and forth, the attorney of the ship owner submitted available evidence to GZMC. However, Clerk Wei Zheng and Xiaotong Zhu figured out that the evidence submitted was not satisfied to the preservation order. They declared the seriousness of the issue to the ship owner and instructed him to abide by the order. After communicating with the ship owner and his Britain lawyer by the attorney, the captain of the ship submitted the evidence met with the request of the preservation order in the next day.

Led by the vice president Jinbiao Deng, the case-filing judge group cautiously examined the evidence list and checked the original files as well as the case description. After hours of examination, the evidence preservation was completed. GZMC connected with Dongguan Maritime Department to release the ship. In the end, GZMC succeeded in the proceedings of evidence gathering, examination and releasing before the scheduled departure time of the ship, which avoided potential great loss to the foreign ship owner.