A cargo insurer is seeking nearly $800,000 from two carriers, alleging a shipment of auto wiring harnesses arrived damaged.
Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company of America sued Kintetsu World Express and Zim Integrated Shipping Services in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on August 26, 2026, seeking to recover what it paid on a cargo claim.
The insurer had covered the cargo owner, Sumitomo Electric Wiring Systems. After paying out on the loss, it stepped into its policyholder's shoes through subrogation - the right an insurer gains to pursue whoever it believes caused the damage. That is what the case turns on.
According to the complaint, the carriers took on four containers of automobile wiring harnesses on or about August 23, 2025, for shipment from Haiphong, Vietnam to Los Angeles. Kintetsu, described in the filing as a “non-vessel owning common carrier” - a middleman that books cargo space but owns no ships - issued three sea waybills. Zim, the ocean carrier that moved the containers, issued three bills of lading. The goods were meant to arrive in the same condition they left.
They did not, the filing says. Mitsui Sumitomo alleges the cargo “was delivered in a damaged and deteriorated condition,” leaving it short by “an amount not less than $797,772.84,” plus expenses, interest and costs.
The complaint brings four claims. The main one falls under the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, or COGSA - the federal law that sets out a carrier's liability for ocean cargo moving through US ports. As backup, the insurer also alleges the carriers were negligent, that the vessel was unfit for the voyage, that they failed in their basic duty to look after goods left in their care, and that they broke their contract to deliver the cargo intact. The filing names the vessel as the M/V Mississippi.
Mitsui Sumitomo is asking for the full $797,772.84, pre-judgment interest of 10% a year from September 9, 2025, post-judgment interest of 7%, and costs. It says the carriers' bills of lading named the Southern District of New York as the agreed venue for any dispute.
The allegations have not been tested, and no court has ruled on the claims.
