Chilean fruit exporters have initiated a legal action to bring an “systematic sequence of abuses” in the Court of Defense of Free Competition (TDLC) against the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) according to reports in Santiago.

It is believed that MSC is being in the hands of 23 Chilean fruit exporting firms of deliberately delaying deliveries and imposing additional charges that resulted in loss that total US 38 millions. Fruit growers say they’ve been subject to an “continuous and consistent series of adversities” throughout the 2021-2022 export season as detailed in en.mercopress.com

FreshPlaza has contacted MSC and they said that they were unable to make a statement as they have not been officially served.

In the words of Diario Financiero, the lawsuit reveals the practices of intentional delays to cargo and unjustified fees imposed by the shipping firm that affected 994 containers across more than 20 distinct routes. That’s about 16,000 tons of fruits.

Lawyers representing the Chilean firms said that they booked their client’s cargo slots ahead of the export season. However, when maritime prices started to increase due to the pandemic Covid-19 restrictions, the shipping business made the decision to focus on alternative routes, thus putting aside earlier commitments.

“MSC used leverage to finance contracts that it had concluded and knowing that it could continue to make money from those contracts, purposefully decided to profit from other companies in the interests of our customers, changing routes as well as the amount of stops that they required, and it could do without risk or counterweight of being punished, just due to the situation of captives that they were in,” argued the fruit exporters via their legal counsel.