Equatorial Marine Fuel Managem v. Misc Berhad

Facts

Equatorial Marine Fuel Management Services sues MISC Berhad for breach of contract and unjust enrichment. Equato- rial, a supplier of marine fuel, claims MISC agreed to pur- chase over $22 million worth of bunker fuel—which is used to power ships—for vessels owned and operated by MISC. Equatorial delivered the bunkers to MISC through Grandeur Trading & Services, but MISC never paid Equatorial.

MISC says it never contracted with Equatorial. According to MISC, it entered into a contract with the bunker-trader Market Asia Link (MA Link) to procure bunkers for MISC. So long as MISC got its bunkers at the agreed upon price, it didn’t much care who MA Link bought them from, which turned out to be Equatorial. And MISC paid MA Link for all the bunkers it received.

Unfortunately, MA Link became insolvent and never paid Equatorial. One party has to suffer the loss: Either Equatorial won’t get paid or MISC will pay twice. Equatorial prefers the latter option, so it brought this suit against MISC in federal district court. In order to establish jurisdiction over MISC, Equatorial filed an ex parte application for maritime attach- ment of MISC’s property that could be found in the…