South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) lost a three-year court battle to seek $372.7 million indemnity from Norway’s Songa Offshore for frequent design changes that resulted in losses of nearly 1 trillion won ($936.2 million) for the shipyard.

The final defeat won’t further dent its balance sheet as it has already reflected the losses, the shipbuilder said Thursday.

DSME shares closed Thursday up 0.18 percent at 27,250 won.

According to industry sources, the English High Court struck down DSME’s appeal request, concluding “the arbitration awards previously made in Songa Offshore’s favor in relation to DSME’s claims (…) are now final and unappealable.”

DSME had won an order from the Norwegian offshore driller to build four Category-D rigs for 600 billion won apiece in 2011. The Korean shipyard filed a damage suit in a London arbitration court in July 2015 after a year-long delay in delivery from additional design changes to the first two rigs cost it nearly 1 trillion won in losses.

It claimed the cost overruns and additional work were due to inherent errors and omissions in the original design documents.

The arbitration tribunal in its preliminary hearing in July 2017 sided with Songa Offshore. DSME appealed two months later but was rejected by the court.

Songa Offshore, which mulled a counterclaim of $65.8 million in damages, agreed to an out-of-court settlement with DSME to end the dispute.

By Woo Je-yoon and Kim Hyo-jin

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