NY port authority sued over fees
The New Jersey-based operator of the largest terminal in New York Harbour alleges the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is charging millions of dollars in unlawful fees, and has filed a lawsuit seeking to strike them down, reported The Record.
The suit filed by Maher Terminals of Elizabeth in US District Court in Newark argues that the port authority has no right to levy some of the charges and fees that totalled about US$35 million in 2010, and are expected to rise to about $37 million this year.
The operator alleges that the fees and charges are not levied in a "fair and equitable basis," and "constitute charges for the privilege" of entering, trading or waiting in the port.
Rather than being based on costs for services provided to Maher Terminals, or use by the company, the fees and charges are designed to help the port authority recover the cost of navigational projects in the Hudson River, such as dredging to deepen the channels, the suit alleges.
"Maher's container terminal is a source of profit" to the port authority, the suit alleges, adding that the agency "recklessly, willfully and wantonly levies and collects charges and fees in excess of what is ... permissible in disregard of Maher's rights and causing it injury."
The terminal operator wants the court to stop the authority from imposing fees and charges "in excess of lawful amounts". The suit says that the agency allocates "hundreds of millions in costs" to New Jersey container terminals, among them Maher Terminals, more than the cost of providing services to the terminals.
The suit says Maher Terminal has been operating in Port Elizabeth for 60 years, and calls the company the "world's largest multi-user marine container terminal operator". Maher Terminal was acquired by a Deutsche Bank unit in 2007.
The terminal consists of the piers, wharves, docks, container transfer facilities, and roadways and railroad connections. Operators load and unload cargo and move it in an out of the terminal.
Maher leases its 445-acre terminal. In turn, according to the suit, the port authority charges the company land rental, which totalled $22.4 million in 2010, and a fee per container handled, which totalled $12.5 million for the one million containers handled that year.
The port authority is expected this year to increase the land rent charged by two percent, and the container handling rates by about 10.5 percent, the suit says.