![COLUMN | Courting disaster? Heavy hitters in offshore get their day in court (part one of two) [Offshore Accounts]](http://media.assettype.com/bairdmaritime%2F2026-05-04%2F7nluu6qh%2FUntitled.jpeg?w=480&auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=max)
"If you want to meet the movers and the shakers of the offshore industry, you don't need to pay big bucks to attend an expensive conference," I first observed way back in 2020. "Instead, you simply have to go to your local courthouse, and watch them battle over millions of dollars there.”
Six years on, nothing has changed. This week, we cover some more of the recent “see you in court moments” in offshore oil and gas.
Norway might look like a consensual Scandinavian socialist paradise to outsiders, all egalitarian, rich and chummy. However, when Norwegians feel they have been cheated, my goodness, they are quick to lawyer up, especially if they are very rich.
This week, we have action involving Solstad, Havila, Seadrill, brokerage SSY, Cypriot tanker baron John Fredriksen, and some UK court drama involving a familiar but aged figure connected to the "dark fleet" of sanctions-busting tankers trading Russian oil.
Most of the cases are civil and commercial disputes, but one suddenly got criminal charges filed last month, with surprising speed.
I should stress that many of the cases are not yet resolved, that the presumption of innocence should always apply in criminal trials, and that many judgements are often subject to appeal, so a judgement may be overturned later.
Buckle up and unleash your inner barrister or your hidden judge. It’s a cliche that only God can judge us, but the Oslo District Court has been quite busy in this respect, too.
Is anyone guilty of love in the first degree in the offshore industry? In Oslo, it seems not.
Think back to the halcyon days of October 2023, when we reported on a story entitled “Solstad Offshore and Aker Capital: circular reasoning and circular dealmaking.”
We asked:
“When is a takeover not a takeover? When it's a restructuring, obviously. The news that Solstad Offshore has embarked on a complicated refinancing with Aker took the markets by surprise.
"Aker was already a 25 per cent shareholder in Solstad, following a convertible loan to the company in 2020, which it converted into shares. Usually when companies are taken over by their largest shareholder, the stock price surges and the acquiror pays a hefty premium for the privilege. Not so in the case of Solstad, because this is not a takeover, even though 72 per cent control of most of the company's assets is ceded to Aker Capital, controlled by Norwegian tycoon Kjell Inge Røkke.”
“I hate complicated deals, because you can never be quite sure of what is going on. In this case, Aker seems to have done everything possible to avoid putting the deal to a shareholder vote at the listed company level.”
It seems we are not the only ones surprised at the deal, which saw six vessels left in the rump of “old Solstad Offshore” whilst 22 of Solstad's construction support vessels and 14 anchor handling tug supply vessels went over to a newly established company Solstad Maritime, controlled by Aker, in which the former shareholders in Solstad Offshore only owned 27 per cent, as part of a debt-to-equity conversion.
In May 2024, billionaire Christen Sveaas, the controlling shareholder of both Sea1 Offshore and Viking Supply Ships, filed a lawsuit through his company Kistefos against the board of Solstad Offshore, its CEO, Lars Peder Solstad, Aker Capital, and their investment banking advisers Pareto Securities in Oslo District Court, seeking damages amounting to hundreds of millions of US dollars.
Sveaas' company Kistefos had been a major shareholder in Solstad Offshore, but it became a much smaller shareholder in the restructured, newly created Solstad Maritime.
“The suit alleged that the restructuring unfairly favoured Aker and insiders, diluting minority shareholders’ stakes and breaching fiduciary duties under the Norwegian Public Limited Companies Act," according to KARVE, a company that insures directors and corporate officers in Norway. "Claims include unequal shareholder treatment, conflicts of interest, and procedural deficiencies. Solstad and Aker refuted these allegations, asserting the refinancing was necessary and properly executed.”
The trial began in October 2025 and lasted 13 weeks, with all the great and the good in the Norwegian shipping community testifying. The case was a major distraction for the senior leadership of Solstad and its board, as well as a major cost for all involved, with legal fees and costs reckoned to run into the million of dollars.
Ahead of the case, Mr Røkke put out a robust defence of his position in an open letter to the shareholders of Aker, asserting that he was the victim of a concerted media campaign by Mr Sveaas, “aimed at discreding Aker and Solstad,” and that the Solstad case was the culmination of a 25-year grudge against him by Mr Sveaas.
“Solstad Offshore was saved by the company’s board, Aker, the banks, and the employees of the shipping company," his missive began. "Kistefos never presented a viable proposal, and even their own advisor, Fearnley Securities, described Kistefos’ involvement in the matter as nothing more than a 'charade'.
"The lawsuit is absurd. No one has suffered financial losses. Since Aker proposed a solution in October 2023, shareholders have more than doubled their investment. Yet the parties are now spending three months in court and over NOK200 million (US$21 million) to litigate a baseless claim for damages."
We expect judgement to be delivered later this month. As Mr Røkke put it in his letter, “I leave it to the court to assess the legal merits.” His letter is well worth reading, however.
Ahead of the verdict, Solstad announced last Thursday that it would take over the ship management of REV Ocean, a US$350 million superyacht research and expedition vessel equipped with advanced facilities for cutting-edge ocean science, including three swimming pools (very necessary for ocean research, I think we can agree), a complex vessel that pushed Vard, its builder, to the edge.
REV Ocean features US$34 million worth of scientific equipment, as well as a submarine for three people that can descend over 2,000 metres below the surface, “to explore the oceans.” Full photos of the ship and its owner are here in Luxury Launches and in Superyacht Fan here. Surely there should also be a feature somewhere in Serious Ocean Research Vessels Magazine?
What’s not mentioned in the Solstad press release is the owner of the vessel. Whilst REV Ocean is operated by a charitable foundation, who owns this 183-metre-long superyacht research vessel? That would be... fisherman turned billionaire and philanthropist, Kjell Inge Røkke, the largest shareholder in, er, Solstad Maritime.
“The purpose of REV Ocean aligns well with our own vision to support ocean research and develop solutions that protect and improve the world’s oceans,” Solstad commented.
One feels that maybe some more disclosure on related parties to the ship management contract would be helpful, but who are we to say?
From one troubled Norwegian restructuring to another.
If Solstad has unhappy shareholders, compatriot Havila Shipping has some very unhappy banks, three of whom have taken legal action against the company, as summarised in the company’s fourth quarter report.
This case lacks the drama of two billionaires wrangling in open court and airing a quarter century of grievances, at least to our knowledge, but has gotten nasty quickly, with petitions to arrest a ship flying around.
The case revolves around three Scandinavian lenders who extended a loan to Havila Shipping to rescue the company in the dark days of June 2020 by financing certain ships including the platform supply vessel (PSV) vessel Havila Foresight and the subsea vessel Havila Harmony.
This pandemic-era restructuring agreement established a two-tier debt structure for Havila, with interest-bearing debt (NOK131 million, now worth US$14 million), which was traditional bank-secured lending against assets. However, there was also a non-interest-bearing B-tranche, valued at NOK595 million (now US$61 million nominal) – which was convertible to equity (company shares) at the end of 2025.
Havila’s Position was that the conversion of the B-tranche to shares was mandatory under the restructuring agreement, and that all the other creditors, except the three banks, had already completed their conversions. It maintained that the lenders were contractually obligated to convert the debt upon expiration of the agreement in December 31, 2025, as per the excellent analysis by Chun Chinyi.
The three banks, on the other hand, claim that the company’s refinancing to redeem debts at the end of December 2024 relating to the vessels Havila Borg, Havila Clipper, Havila Fanø and Havila Subsea was a breach of the restructuring agreement, which nullifies it. Therefore, they alleged that they do not have to convert the debt to shares in Havila; instead, the company should repay the non-interest bearing loan in full immediately.
The consequences could not be more stark depending on the outcome.
Havila sent a summons to the Oslo District Court alleging that there was no breach of contract, and the same court heard the case in November last year. However, the court found against Havila and in favour of the three lenders in early December. The banks demanded immediate repayment of NOK733.8 million (now US$79 million) from the shipowner, which Havila said was unenforceable, as it did not have hundreds of millions of krone available.
“The company believes that the judgment is incorrect and announced in a stock exchange announcement on the same day that the judgment would be appealed,” Havila said in its quarterly report.
But the case has escalated quickly. On April 1, Havila disclosed to the Oslo Stock Exchange that DNB Bank, Swedbank and Danske Bank had issued a petition to register an arrest over the vessel Havila Herøy and certain other assets of the company. Havila Herøy is an 80-metre-long PSV built in 2009, flying the Norwegian flag and working in Norwegian waters.
Havila continues to dispute the banks' claims, and the hearing for its appeal is scheduled for September 29, 2026. In the meantime, the company is also seeking to try to overturn the petition for the arrest of the ship before the relevant courts, and it said it would seek compensation for any loss it incurs as a result of the banks' actions.
We’ll keep you posted. Readers can take away that ship finance is complicated, that maintaining good relations with your lenders is important to (Havila) harmony, and that breaches of loan agreements can have significant downside to vessel owners if the lenders choose to enforce their rights in court.
As we covered eleven months ago, the experiences of both Bourbon and of Sinopacific, and the latter's founder Simon Liang Xiaolei, show that angry lenders can forcibly sell ships, creating operational difficulties for all concerned.
In part two later this week, we will look at some more salacious courtroom stories featuring the dark fleet, commission disputes in Angola, and a notorious photograph of a shipbroker with a lady known for her exploits on OnlyFans (if you don’t know what OnlyFans is, be very careful at searching for it on your work computer).
