More than a month after Hanjin Shipping Co. sought bankruptcy protection in South Korea and in courts around the world, customers are still fighting with the company over how to retrieve their goods, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Ashley Furniture Industries Inc. said that it has been left on the hook for cleaning up the logistical mess in the wake of Hanjin’s bankruptcy and is asking a U.S. judge to allow it to withhold damages from fees it owes to Hanjin. The South Korean shipping company, however, is refusing to release some of Ashley Furniture’s cargo until it is paid in full. Some of Ashley Furniture’s containers have been delivered or otherwise retrieved by the company, many of which are weeks behind schedule. Other containers, still stocked with goods, are floating on Hanjin ships or sitting idle on port tarmacs waiting to be released by the shipper. During a hearing Friday in Newark, N.J., lawyers for Ashley Furniture asked Bankruptcy Judge John Sherwood to help it recover damages of more than $1 million it said that it is owed for having to pick up containers delivered to the wrong ports.
