A decade after Hanjin Shipping’s collapse sent shockwaves through global supply chains, the failed Korean carrier is back in focus — this time at the heart of a debate over how South Korea decides whether distressed companies should be restructured or liquidated.
The Seoul Rehabilitation Court is considering reducing its reliance on court-appointed examiners, whose valuations can effectively determine whether a company entering rehabilitation survives or is wound up.
Under the current system, examiners assess both liquidation value and going-concern value. If liquidation is deemed more valuable, the prospects for standalone rehabilitation narrow sharply.
Now, the court is reviewing whether creditors and debtors should have more room to negotiate restructuring plans, attract new investment, or pursue other rescue options before those valuations become decisive.
Hanjin remains one of shipping’s most enduring cautionary tales, and Splash readers voted it among the most significant shipping stories of the 2010s.
On August 31, 2016, Splash reported that the Korean carrier had become the most prominent casualty of the container shipping downturn after creditors withdrew support, with Seoul appearing to favour rival HMM as the industry’s survivor.
At the time, Hanjin was the world’s seventh-largest liner operator, running 98 ships with a combined capacity of about 610,000 teu, alongside 44 bulkers and tankers. It also had 61 chartered-in ships.
Its collapse was swift and chaotic. Ships were arrested or denied entry at ports, cargo was stranded worldwide, and lawyers scrambled either to protect or seize assets. Within just over two weeks, Hanjin had sought court protection in 43 countries.
The court-appointed examiner later concluded that Hanjin’s liquidation value exceeded its worth as a going concern. Rehabilitation was terminated, and the company was declared bankrupt in early 2017.
What followed continues to trouble Korea’s insolvency community.
Within a few years, container shipping entered the biggest boom in its history, as pandemic disruption, capacity shortages, and port congestion drove freight rates and liner profits to record highs.
That raises an obvious question: could any valuation made during the brutal container markets of 2016 reasonably have predicted what came next? That uncertainty is helping fuel the current rethink.
Hanjin’s downfall is also shaping a broader effort in South Korea to preserve the shipping industry’s hard-earned lessons. Earlier this month, the Korea Maritime Institute launched a Korean Shipping History Task Force to systematically document the crises faced by the country’s maritime sector and the responses from government and industry. More than 30 representatives from shipping, academia, and government are involved.
Rather than simply compiling a timeline, KMI plans to connect major events with freight market conditions and policy responses, while digitising historical documents, data, and first-hand accounts to identify what worked and what failed. The goal is to turn shipping history into a practical resource policymakers can use when the next crisis arrives.