{"id":6870,"date":"2023-04-12T10:43:21","date_gmt":"2023-04-12T10:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/boc-aviation-awarded-406-2\/"},"modified":"2023-04-13T00:44:32","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T00:44:32","slug":"boc-aviation-awarded-406","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/boc-aviation-awarded-406\/","title":{"rendered":"BOC Aviation awarded $406 million over planes stuck in Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Tuesday ordered Russia’s largest cargo airline to pay aircraft lessor BOC Aviation Ltd $406.2 million after being declared in default on leases for three Boeing 747-8 freighters following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan found the defendant AirBridgeCargo Airlines LLC and its parent Volga-Dnepr Logistics BV liable, after the invasion and resulting sanctions left the plaintiff BOC Aviation unable to reclaim the aircraft.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment. BOC declined comment.<\/p>\n

Aircraft lessors have sued multiple insurers and lessees in mainly European courts for billions of dollars over hundreds of aircraft stuck in Russia since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. <\/p>\n

BOC Aviation said AirBridgeCargo went into default after being unable to maintain required reinsurance coverage.<\/p>\n

This followed restrictions imposed by the European Union against Russian carriers on aircraft used in Russia, and Russian sanctions on foreign assets, including internationally leased aircraft.<\/p>\n

BOC Aviation said it was able to recover one leased plane and two of its four engines, while the two other planes and two other engines remained in Russia.<\/p>\n

The lessor’s majority shareholder is Bank of China Ltd.<\/p>\n

In a 57-page decision, Liman said BOC Aviation had proven that the Russian government had “effected a seizure” of the planes and engines by keeping them from being used outside Russia, “save perhaps to areas in Ukraine or for the purposes of the war.”<\/p>\n

The judge said that undermined BOC Aviation’s ability to carry out its right to reclaim possession.<\/p>\n

He also rejected AirBridgeCargo’s defenses that neither side could have foreseen a default, and it was impossible to ground the planes outside Russia because the country had ordered them flown back.<\/p>\n

Similar arguments have been set out in other cases, but the lack of standardised terms and a tradition of contractual secrecy in the jet industry has made it difficult for lessors to pool their claims into one class action, industry sources say,<\/p>\n

Liman ruled after a one-day non-jury trial held on April 3.<\/p>\n

The case is BOC Aviation Ltd v AirBridgeCargo Airlines LLC et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 22-02070.<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Jamie Freed and Jason Neely)<\/p>\n

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Tuesday ordered Russia’s largest cargo airline to pay aircraft lessor BOC Aviation Ltd $406.2 million after being declared in default on leases for three Boeing 747-8 freighters following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan found the defendant AirBridgeCargo Airlines LLC and its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":6871,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-6870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3A0UU-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6870"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8455,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6870\/revisions\/8455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}