Ship sails on vacatur request

Appellant sought review of an attachment order on the M/V OCEAN SHANGHAI.  Appellee moved to dismiss the appeal, as the parties had settled, and the boat in question had left the jurisdiction (near the coast of Latvia as of the date of this post.)    Farenco Shipping Co. v. Farenco Shipping PTE, Ltd., No. 12-31154 (March 4, 2013, unpublished).  Appellant responded by asking for vacatur of the attachment order.  Recognizing that this request raised the novel question of vacatur of an interlocutory order rather than a final judgment, the Fifth Circuit found no “exceptional circumstances” in either the parties’ settlement or the order’s potential collateral estoppel effect that would warrant its vacatur.  With respect to the settlement, the Court observed that as a general matter: “Settlements are frequently made under difficult circumstances, and often represent the least bad of several bad options; this does not make such settlements involuntary.”