Topaz Marine Dubai and Team Offshore Vessels Arrested in Nigeria by Court Order

A Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt has again ordered the arrest of marine vessels belonging to an International marine services company Topaz Energy and Marine which are now being managed by a newly formed entity Team Offshore Ltd, incorporated by the management of Topaz as a means to continue trading in Nigerian waters without fulfilling their obligations to existing local partners over allegations of irregularities including, but not limited to breach of contract and avoidance of accurate reporting to the relevant authorities.
The court issued the arrest warrant for the vessels - Topaz Seema and Topaz Faye in a ruling on the claims by the local company who had filed a claim of over $50 million dollars against Topaz Marine based on a the breach of a business cooperation agreement it had with Topaz, which Topaz Chief Executive Officer - Mr. Rene Knudsen Olsen has consistently reneged on. The protracted disputes had led to the earlier arrest of Topaz Sophie and Seema in December 2017, in a matter between Cutra and Topaz Dubai.
Topaz, under Mr Olsen’s management, has acquired a reputation of not keeping to its obligations and from publicized accounts are heavily leveraged and financed by many financial institutions, including Standard Chartered Bank Dubai. The local partners are alleging fraud in the procurement of a US$500million dollar bond and an investment of US$75m from Standard Chartered Bank, Dubai to procure both additional and refinance already owned vessels. In part and in short during the investment process, Topaz tendered incorrect and falsified documents for the transaction, claiming to be be 60% owners of Topaz Nigeria as managers, when in fact their true holding was 40%.
Mr. Koford-Olsen has also in the opinion of partners shown brazen disrespect for laws of countries in which they operate, and there are indications that the company is being investigated by the Nigeria Customs Service and the Federal Inland Revenue Service for several suspicious dealings including invalid accounting and the manipulation of Temporary Import Certificates. The company had, on occasions and in flagrant disregard for court orders, surreptitiously removed arrested vessels from the jurisdiction.
Topaz now has twelve (12) vessels owned by foreign entities, many of which are chartered to the International Oil Companies (IOCs),including Mobil,Total,Chevron etc within the waters of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, against the provisions of the Nigerian Content Act and depriving Nigerian companies with similar vessels patronage from the IOCs. They misrepresented the ownership of the vessels to the Nigerian Content Development Board and secured a category AA rating when all the vessels are owned by foreign shell companies belonging to Topaz Dubai,contrary to the express provisions of the law.A reliable source hinted that the Nigerian content board is investigating this anomaly,as several qualified Nigerian entities whose vessels are lying idle have petitioned the Presidency and the National Assembly about this egregious breach of the law by a foreign company who are manipulating the system,aided by some unscrupulous lagos based lawyers.