The Case of the Day is Linsen International Ltd. v. Humpuss Sea Transport Pte Ltd. (S.D.N.Y. 2011). Linsen and the other plaintiffs were shipowners who chartered their ships to HST. HST failed to pay. The charter agreement had an arbitration clause calling for arbitration in London. During the arbitration, HST “attempted to reorganize its corporate structure,” which led the plaintiffs to obtain a freezing injunction from the English court. The plaintiffs first sought to enforce the injunction in the US court, and after they obtained an award in the arbitration, they sought to confirm the award.

HST’s lawyers tried to stave off the inevitable, but the affirmative defenses they pleaded were plainly insufficient. Most notably, they pleaded that “Pursuant to Article 5 of the [New York] Convention … at least one of the seven bases for non-recognition exist.” This is not good pleading, but more to the point, HST could not establish any of the grounds for non-recognition, as it had the burden to do.