The captain received a salary three years after the completion of the contract of employment

Three years after the Frunzensky district court of Vladivostok passed a judgment to pay the salary to the captain of the m/v  Stas (flag of Panama) he finally received the money he earned. It took so long to find the beneficial owners of the vessel and oblige them to pay the amount due to the seafarer. The ex. Master visited the office of the Far Eastern regional organization of the Seafarers Union of Russia and reported that he received about 16 thousand US dollars. The captain did not immediately apply for the DVRO SUR for help. After being signed off from the ship empty-handed he independently appealed to the court in 2017. The court found that the seafarer worked on board from February 5, 2017 to July 4, 2017 and ordered the employer to pay off the salary arrears that had accumulated during this period. In fact there was no one to demand money from, so the captain came to the Union and asked for assistance in finding a solution to the problem. He said that before he was employed on a ship belonged to the company Ardis  in Vladivostok, he was sent to the crewing agency Interfos, which allegedly carried out the employment of seafarers on ships under a foreign flag. The crewing agency offered him to sign an employment contract with the Cyprus company Cotris Limited, which in turn bareboat chartered the vessel under Panama fag. Interfos gave the seafarer to sign the form of the employment contract, which was already signed by the Cypriot side. The provision of employment under the contract it was indicated that the crewing is not responsible for the payment of wages. After the contract was completed the captain was not paid. The Ardis shipping company only issued him a certificate of debt and offered to contact the Cyprus company Cotris Lmtd. However, the captain immediately appealed to the court, which decided that the Cyprus company must repay the debt to the former employee. Having received the enforcement order instead of wages, the seafarer did not know who and where to bring it. «This type of deception of seafarers has existed for a long time, since the flags of convenience appeared, - explained the Chairman of the DVRO SUR Nikolay Sukhanov. The owners intentionally create an intricate pattern so that the seafarers could not obtain assistance under national legislation. The example of the m/v Stas shows how the system works: the ship was purchased by the Ardis shipping company and then the relevant documents were issued for its transfer to the bareboat charter of the Cyprus Cotris Limited. Under such circumstances it is almost impossible to track down so the captain, you can say, proved to be lucky».