A Sharjah court canceled a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) contract and ordered a Dh63.8 million refund in a dispute over a shipment that missed its deadline, Gulf News reported Oct. 22.
Gulf News put the repayment at Dh63,819,327.81. The reported order also sets interest at 5%, accruing from the filing of the buyer’s lawsuit until the seller pays.
The contract covered 41,000 metric tonnes of LPG and set a total price of Dh112,214,155.63. The repayment covers money the seller had received toward that price, rather than the contract’s full value, the report said.
Payments were tied to different stages of the transaction. The buyer was to make an advance payment, send further installments after bills of lading arrived in the UAE, and pay the balance when the goods reached the delivery port.
The buyer sought to end the agreement and recover its payments after the seller missed the deadline and failed to provide documents needed to ship the gas to the UAE, Gulf News reported.
Marwa Al Suwaidi, the buyer’s lawyer, argued that the missed deadline supported her client’s request to terminate the deal and seek compensation for losses. She offered evidence of another sale deal between her client and a company, covering the same petroleum product. Late delivery under that deal carried a penalty, Gulf News reported.
The court found that the seller had not met its delivery and documentation obligations. It canceled the agreement and ordered the company to return the purchase-price payments it had received, according to Gulf News.
