Originally published at: A cruise ship full of passengers changes course to avoid a lawsuit | Boing Boing
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I can’t tell from the articles whether the cruise company compensated their passengers for the inconvenience or additional travel costs. I imagine that (plus the bad publicity) isn’t going to help the company’s financial woes.
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Well issuing a bunch of coupons likely costs them very little, so if they did “compensate” the passengers my guess is it is in the form of 15% of your next cruise with us!
Added bonus (to the cruise lines) if they go bankrupt the don’t even need to honor them!
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I always thought that unless you were paying with a credit card at the pump, you had to pay in advance. 
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More exciting than the case of The People vs. Boaty McBoatface.
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Sounds like the captain of this boat is kind of asshole:
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I smell many more lawsuits coming…
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That’s where a judge assign them a row-boat to honor them all?
The company I work for is in related industries to commercial marine fuel, most large scale transactions are done on some type of net terms. To over simplify the ship gets the fuel and an invoice, either the ship or the merchant is supposed to send the invoice to the ship’s central office so they can send a check or bank transfer to the fuel merchant.
A quick bit of research and apparently it’s not unheard of for cruise ships to use more than $200k per day in diesel, so the $1.2 million from the story might have been from a single fill up. I don’t know many companies that would give someone a credit card with a million dollar limit. And most merchants would not want to take a credit card for that amount, as they typically take a percent from the merchant. Most checks and bank transfers are a flat rate payed by the sender so they are much more preferable for large transactions.
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I had this happen when filling up my car. After $100 you have to start a new transaction and swipe again. You can put the rest on a second credit card if you want.
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Remind me again why I don’t ever want to go on a cruise.
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This kind of thing is going to happen increasingly as the industry contracts due to two years of COVID.
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Whoooosh! 
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So, where does the CEO of this marvelous enterprise live? A non-extradition country? Next door to El Trumpo? Inquiring minds want to know!
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International Maritime can get convoluted. The vessel itself can be owned by an unnamed conglomerate, and a well-known shipping company can act as manager. In this case Crystal Cruises is HQ’d in Miami, and its parent company, (Genting) is HQ’d is in Hong Kong, and its parent company (Genting Group) is in Malaysia. The ship is registered in the Bahamas.
So, you have a US shell company owned by a Chinese shell company owned by a conglomerate of shell companies in Malaysia operating ships flown under a flag of convenience (Bahamas). I’m sure the Malaysian conglomerate’s owner is incorporated under a brass plate somewhere in the Caribbean or Atlantic.
You know all those faceless, nameless business people who own the world’s money supply? Yep, most of them made their money as faceless, nameless owners of merchant ships managed by big names like Maersk, MSC, Evergreen, Seaspan, Teekay, and a ton of smaller companies you’ve never heard of or probably never will, until one of the ships is in an accident or in port arrest like this one.
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The source article is not quite accurate.
The term is Ship Arrest or Port Arrest. It’s not really a warrant, but a court order that is served upon the master of the vessel, and the vessel is forbidden from leaving port until the debt is paid. It’s common to have ships in arrest in ports around the world for non-payment of fuel, provisions, or dock fees. The crew will typically remain aboard the vessel until the ship management company pays the debt and it can be freed from arrest.
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If corporations want to be treated like humans, let’s start arresting them.
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This makes me sad because I used to love cruises, but at this moment it’s hard to envision any circumstances in the foreseeable future where it would be safe to go on one 
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