Are the debts owed to Atradius DSB by the Suape Port Authority Illegitimate?

Abstract: In 2011, the Dutch dredging company Van Oord was hired to expand the Suape port’s capacity by dredging the entrance to a new shipyard, and to deepen the access channel to the port in order to allow bigger tankers to reach a newly built local oil refinery. The company took out insurance for these projects by the Dutch ECA Atradius DSB (Dutch State Business). These projects ended up having major implications for local communities and wildlife, and only one of them were ever completed. Even though the access channel was never completed, Van Oord still claimed the outstanding payments on the project, and when the Suape port authority refused, Atradius DSB claimed it on the insurance. The thesis investigates whether or not the debts owed to Atradius DSB by the Suape port authority are legitimate, and finds that there are grounds for declaring the debts owed from the never completed dredging project to be illegitimate.