The daily business briefing: April 14, 2021

Egypt seizes the ship that blocked the Suez Canal, the S&P 500 hits another record high with a boost from tech stocks, and more

The Ever Given
(Image credit: Mahmoud Khaled/Getty Images)

1. Egypt seizes ship that blocked Suez Canal

Egypt has seized the Ever Given, the container ship that got wedged in the Suez Canal and forced a weeklong shutdown of the vital waterway, the vessel's owner said Tuesday. Egyptian authorities are demanding that the ship's Japanese owner, Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., pay at least $900 million to cover the damage to the canal, the rescue operation, and lost business. Tuesday's seizure came after the manager of the waterway obtained an order from an Egyptian court saying the company had failed to pay. "They don't want to pay anything," Osama Rabie, chair of the Suez Canal Authority, said. A spokesman for the ship's owner said authorities were "still talking to us. So we will continue negotiations on compensation."

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.