MV Werften Insolvency Administrator Seeks Back Pay for Workers, Completion of Global Dream Cruise Ship

A general view of the cruise liner Global Dream, which is still under construction at the shipbuilding hall of the MV Werften shipyards which are insolvent, in Wismar, Germany January 13, 2022.

A court-appointed insolvency administrator for German shipbuilder MV Werften is working on getting all 2,000 employees paid their December wages asap and will seek to continue construction on the Global Dream cruise ship, the law firm for the administrator said Wednesday.

Dr Christoph Morgen, from the Hamburg-based law firm Brinkmann & Partner, was appointed as the preliminary insolvency administrator by the Schwerin District Court on Wednesday. His appointment comes after the shipbuilder, owned by Genting Hong Kong, filed for insolvency on Monday after negotiations over financing between Genting HK and German state and federal authorities failed to materialize.

The Hong Kong-based cruise and resort holding company has since warned of more defaults may be coming, causing shares of the company to plunge by over 50%.

According to the law firm, Dr Morgen’s first order of business will be getting MV Werften’s employees, some 1,900 of them, past wages owed.

“The MV Werften Group did not pay the December salaries. It is now all the more urgent for the employees that they are quickly paid for their work,” Morgen said in a press release, which was published in German and translated using Google. “You need your money fast. My team and I have already initiated the pre-financing of the insolvency money. The implementation will take a few more days.”

MV Werften’s insolvency has also left the fate of its biggest project, the construction of the Global One/Dream cruise ship, hanging in the balance. The ship, which is being built for Genting HK subsidiary Dream Cruises, is reported to be about 75% completed and delivery had been planned for later this year from MV Werften’s Wismar shipyard. Continuing construction on the ship will be another priority for the administrator.

“I would like to finish building the cruise ship ‘Global One’ with the employees of MV Werften and the suppliers in Wismar,” said Morgen. “For this purpose, I will immediately start talks with all those involved in order to work out the requirements for the completion of the ship. In addition, from my point of view, it is important to jointly explore solution ideas for MV Werften and thus also for the many suppliers from the maritime industry, which is so important for Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania,” he said, referring to the German state where the Wismar shipyard is located.

MV Werften was formed in 2016 with Genting Hong Kong’s acquisition of Nordic Yards’ three shipyards in Wismar, Rostock-Warnemunde and Stralsund, Germany. Since then, MV Werften has completed a number of projects for Genting HK subsidiaries, but its businesses have been hit hard from the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the cruise and resort tourism industries.

In addition to MV Werften, Genting HK’s subsidiaries include Crystal Cruises, Dream Cruises, Star Cruises and Resorts World Manila, a major resort in Manila, Philippines.