Who pays for Suez blockage? Ever Given grounding could spark years of litigation

Ship likely to be centre of protracted legal battle over what caused it to run aground in the Suez and who is to blame

After hauling its 240,000-ton bulk down the Suez canal a week after blocking the essential waterway, the container ship the Ever Given is likely to become the centre of a protracted battle over who will pay for its rescue.

The 1,312-ft-long ship was aground on the banks of the Suez Canal for a week, causing an estimated 7bn loss each day in trade owing to ships stuck on either side, and up to 10.9m a day for the canal. We managed to refloat the ship in record time. If such a crisis had occurred anywhere else in the world, it would have taken three months to be solved," said Osama Rabie, the head of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA).