The article says the parent company is in financial difficulties, and the individual in question was basically being held for ransom (along with the ship). Depending on the ordering of debts (for the company), they may not have been able to compensate the Egyptians.
All of that being said, I agree an American company likely would have had this sorted out faster, because the USA tends to deal with bankruptcies and the like very quickly.
Seems to me that corporations owning ships having financial difficulties would be a natural consequence of outsourcing behaviour. You want to outsource risk and responsibilities. So the big companies get rid of their ships and hire small companies on the edge of profitability.
I assume it's not always the most sound way to do business but some should get away with it.
Let's assume that logistics organisations consistently run out of resources. That this is a probabalistic outcome of operations. The BBC article even gives us a sense of the baseline risk, about 250 cases presently, and 85 new ones reported in 2020 (meaning that typical durations exceed a year in length).
In that case, how do you address the inevitable circumstance without creating a human rights abuse crisis, presuming sufficient consideration and political will exists for this to occur?
Elsewhere in the thread, surity bonds are mentioned. That is, a ship on entering a port or other navigational / marine facility, places a bond in which some large and far more solvent entity assures that compensation where due is paid.
International treaties (to which major transit points such as canals might be obligated to join) are another option.
An international response organisation with the ability to both intervene and impose additional sanctions on any entities which impose such sailor-arrest.
Keep in mind that the 2020 Beruit ANFO explosion occurred after a not-dissimilar situation, in which a ship was deemed unseaworthy and its cargo seized and held under exceptionally (and ultimately massively fatal and damaging) conditions, in part because its ownership and questions over compensation were not met.
(There were quite admittedly other concerns and failures, including by the Beruit port authority and judiciary, but the ownership and payment aspects touched on most of these. Hazardous cargo and storage have been at the heart of several other recent major disasters, including in Tianjin, China.)
Whilst "flag of convenience" regulations make race-to-the-bottom standards in shipping regulation common, obligations to maintain surity bonds or similar instruments of substantial duration (e.g., a year or more) to access major ports, canals, fueling depots, and the like, could help ensure compliance.
> The United Federation of Planets doesn’t even use money
Well, they occasionally say they don’t (and Roddenberry said they don’t), but they actually do (or discussing the fact that they do) in every single one of the series, and several of the movies.
> and it’s post-scarcity so they don’t run out of resources.
They do run into resource limits.
Also, the UFP is, you known, fiction, and not even haed science fiction (or even particularly internally consistent fiction.)
Ships, planets, space, etc. are scarce and owned by various actors. The Federation is an interplanetary government made of sovereign member states, many of which do trade and use money. Even without the use of trade, there must be systems for determining who controls what.
Most of these ships are owned by single vessel companies, much like power plants. This allows the massive shipping companies to walk away from individual vessels.
This legal fiction is only true as long as it is allowed to be. Egypt can see who was operating and using the ship and block their other ships until they fix the issue - they don't need to hold a scapegoat hostage for years.
There is also back channeling. I also believe that if the shipping company and the sailor were from a different country (not necessarily the US but not failed states either), he would have gone home a long time ago.
All of that being said, I agree an American company likely would have had this sorted out faster, because the USA tends to deal with bankruptcies and the like very quickly.