Namyong Terminal Plc, a warehouse firm embroiled in a legal dispute with City Hall over the rental fees for a warehouse where fire trucks and tankers bought from an Austrian supplier and shipped to Thailand in 2007 are stored, has lodged a new civil suit demanding massive compensation.
The warehouse company filed suit with the Intellectual Property and International Trade Court last Wednesday demanding the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) pay it one billion baht in compensation, plus interest of 7.5% a year and a fee for keeping the fire trucks and tankers at 272,817 baht a day, according to a news article run by a Thai-language newspaper Thursday.
The BMA on Aug 25, 2004 signed a contract with the Austrian supplier, Steyr-Daimler-Puch Spezialfahrzeug AG to purchase fire-fighting equipment and the supplier later shipped 67 fire trucks and 72 fire tankers to Thailand, said the report.
These were a second batch of trucks and tankers which have been kept at a warehouse owned by Namyong Terminal Plc at Laem Chabang deep-sea port in Chon Buri since 2007, said the report.
The first batch of 176 trucks, imported in 2006, meanwhile, has been kept at a warehouse belonging to Thepayont Aeromotive Industries Co in Nonthaburi's Bang Bua Thong district.
After the BMA failed to complete the customs clearance process required to take the purchased products from the warehouse, Namyong Terminal lodged its first civil suit with the Intellectual Property and International Trade Court on Jun 11, 2012 demanding 530.37 million baht in compensation from the BMA for allegedly violating the warehouse service contract, said the report.
The court dismissed the civil suit on March 18, 2013 on the grounds that the statute of limitations in the case had expired, said the report, adding that the company later appealed against the ruling with the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court on March 28 upheld the lower court's ruling.
The Supreme Court reasoned in its ruling that even though the BMA was the buyer of the products, it was not liable for paying the warehouse service fees as demanded by Namyong Terminal because it had not even begun the process of customs clearance, proof that the BMA had not expressed its intention to accept delivery, said the report.
However, the BMA on Dec 16 last year asked to take the 139 fire trucks and tankers from Laem Chabang, claiming that they were to be treated as military hardware that is exempt from import duty, said the report.
Namyong Terminal has used this move by the BMA as new evidence to support the new civil suit it is pursuing against the BMA, said the report.
Deputy Bangkok governor Pol Gen Aswin Kwanmuang said last August the vehicles were brought out of the warehouse and repaired under an order of the National Council for Peace and Order for the BMA to speed up use of the vehicles for the public's benefit.
In their dispute, the BMA wants the warehouse company to reduce the rent and apply the rate from December 2015 when the fire engine purchase scandal was settled in the Geneva-based Court of Conciliation and Arbitration.
The court ordered Steyr to pay €20.49 million (820 million baht) in damages to the BMA, which in return was required to accept all the fire engines, boats and equipment procured from the Austrian firm.