Tanker owner Mediterranea di Navigazione is at loggerheads with Indonesian state-owned shipbuilder PT Pal over a $22m arbitration award.

A long-running dispute over an order for two chemical tankers should have ended last year when a London arbitration court ruled in favour of the Italian shipowner.

But chairman and chief executive Paolo Cagnoni accused the state-owned shipbuilder of behaving in a “cowboy” fashion by refusing to pay the award and instead demanded a new legal process should begin in Indonesia.