Samsung Heavy Industries has won an appeal in a $250 million damages lawsuit related to brokerage fees for a drillship filed by Petrobras America, a Brazilian state oil company subsidiary.
Samsung Heavy Industries announced today that the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The appeals court confirmed that there were no errors in the original judgment or its legal application and dismissed Petrobras’s claims for damages.
Petrobras filed the lawsuit claiming it suffered $250 million in damages due to the improper use of brokerage fees paid by Samsung Heavy Industries for the drillship DS-5, which Samsung constructed and delivered in 2011.
In August last year, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, in the first instance, accepted Samsung Heavy Industries’ argument that there was no reasonable causal link between Samsung’s actions and Petrobras’s losses and dismissed the case. Petrobras appealed the ruling in September of the following month.
It is not yet confirmed whether Petrobras will file a further appeal. Samsung Heavy Industries stated, “If Petrobras decides to contest the appellate court’s ruling, we will issue a further disclosure on the matter.”