The MV Cherry Blossom and its 55,000 mt cargo of Moroccan phosphate rock has departed South African territorial waters and is on its way back to Morocco, Moroccan phosphate group OCP SA announced on May 8.
The vessel was seized by South African authorities in May 2017 in a dispute over the cargo’s ownership. The Port Elizabeth High Court ruled in late February that the cargo belonged to the Western Sahara Polisario Front’s self-proclaimed state, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), and not to OCP. SADR subsequently put the cargo up for a sealed bid auction. The deadline for the submission of bids was initially April 19, but that deadline was extended.
“Today, OCP is pleased that the cargo’s rightful ownership has been restored. The refusal of all potential buyers to bid constitutes clear and irrefutable evidence of the illegitimacy of the ownership granted to the Polisario by the court in Port Elizabeth,” said Otmane Bennani Smires, OCP’s executive vice president and general counsel. “The refusal of any potential buyers to be complicit in this clear breach of basic principles of domestic and international law has demonstrated a unanimous rejection of this type of abusive action that threatens the freedom and security of international commerce.”
The local court in Port Elizabeth declared jurisdiction last July to adjudicate the merits of international sovereignty claims involving the Moroccan cargo, but OCP refused to participate in the proceedings. According to OCP, in order to free its vessel, Cherry Blossom’s owner covered the auctioneer’s costs and was awarded the cargo, which it then returned to the OCP Group for a symbolic $1.