A company that provided port services for discharging chemicals from ships refused to evacuate a dedicated terminal that was allocated to it at the port, after 60 years of activity, despite the port's demands to evacuate no later than 180 days.
The Court ordered that the company is to evacuate the terminal and set a time frame. Possession and use of the property, when the rent expired and the agreement has not been formally renewed, may suggest that the parties agreed to continue the agreement between them. However, such an agreement is not forever and at any time each party may terminate it - subject to a prior notice and giving the other party reasonable time. Here, a "reasonable time" for the evacuation of the terminal is 35 months because the process of emptying and dismantling the tanks at the terminal must be carried out in a complex engineering process and includes risk factors to the employees performing the procedure, the public and the environment.
Published in Afik News 282 08.05.2019