October 29, 2011
U.S. Marshals yesterday seized the booth of Inace Yachts at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show.
At issue is a warranty dispute that lawyers for the owner put at nearly $1 million.
Items removed in the high-profile Yacht Builders and Designers tent on a busy Friday afternoon included furniture, file cabinets, a television and some sales materials.
John DeCaro, president of All Ocean Yachts, a yacht brokerage company that represents Inace in the United States, watched as the items were taken away.
“We have nothing to do with the dispute,” he said. “It’s between the owner and the shipyard over a warranty dispute.”
The few items that belong to All Ocean remained in the booth, which the brokerage re-outfitted with its own furniture. It remains open at the show.
The dispute began as a warranty issue with the 111-foot M/Y Catalonian Spirit, a yacht the yard launched in 2008, said attorney Michael Moore, whose firm represents the owner. But after winning in court, he said Inace was not cooperative on paying the final judgment.
“When an international company thumbs their nose at the justice system in the U.S., it can’t be ignored,” said Clay Naughton, an attorney with the Moore & Company. “This Brazilian company is not judgment proof.”
Though the builder is based in Brazil, the yacht is in the U.S., and a federal judge decided that the owner could go after assets Inace has in this country. His lawyers found what they could.
“It was a little bit of an effort to get someone’s attention,” Moore said. “We did what we were instructed to do by our client.”
Editor Lucy Chabot Reed contributed to this report.
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All Ocean reply
Editor's note: This letter is from John DeCaro of All Ocean Yachts
As you have now stated correctly, All Ocean Yachts was not involved with the owner or the dispute. The owner was a direct client of the shipyard, he's not American, and the contract wasn't governed by U.S. law.
1. Inace wanted to handle the points in dispute through arbitration in Brazil under Brazilian law, as the parties agreed in their contract;
2. the judgment, which was entered by default, is for an amount less than half of what is stated in your account and represents the maximum amount that the owner thought he could justify, not an amount determined by a judge or jury after full presentation of each side's position; and
3. other warranty work not in dispute was being carried out.
I can state that every Inace Explorer Yacht that I have been involved in the build of -- which, over the past 18 years, has been quite a few -- when sold by the owner has sold for between 35 percent and 55 percent more than its original build price, despite being between four and 10 years old at the time of sale.
All Ocean Yachts
Those days...
@ aeronautic1, lol, Those days are long gone, I remember them. This years show is the worst attended and celebrated I have ever seen. Thursday I could have run down the docks.
What? No banner tow sign?
What? No banner tow sign? Remember the good old days when a Broward 104 was a mega yacht? every boat show had a Choey Lee banner ad.
Awesome!
I agree 100%. Although they probably only seized a couple of thousand worth of goods, the impact on their reputation will be extravagant, well over the $1 million in dispute.
These yards need to start really considering the fact that most yacht owners are not the type of people that get pushed around.
I like it. Last boat I was on
I like it. Last boat I was on Kingship wouldn't honor their warranty either, and it was way over a million dollars to get that boat into a seaworthy state of commission. Then there was the fact that I had to make a MILLION dollars worth of changes to retain my Lloyds certificate. These were changes to things that Lloyds had approved at the factory to issue the same certificate to begin with, a Maltese Cross Certificate to boot. Every Lloyds inspector I challenged on that matter just hung their heads in shame and could not answer why the vessel left the factory with a certificate with a million dollars worth of discrepancies, mostly in design.
It's about time owners started holding the industry accountable to provide quality products.