Florida’s Overseas Shipholding Group (OSG) has fired back in a legal battle launched by Oslo-listed shipowner AMSC, alleging the Norwegian company’s actions forfeited $4m of the money it is pursuing because its representatives tried to recruit crew members while inspecting a tanker.

The retort by the US tanker company comes almost four months after AMSC, formerly known as American Shipping, filed the lawsuit in a federal court in New York alleging that OSG breached a contract, in part, by failing to pay a fee due at the end of the bareboat contract.