Plaintiff shipbroker assisted Defendant shipbuilder to enter into contracts to build four ships for a single buyer. Plaintiff and Defendant signed four commission contracts, each of which stipulated that Defendant would pay Plaintiff a ship commission of USD166,500 per ship, spread over five installments. Each installment payment was to be made according to a timetable of agreed milestones in the shipbuilding process, with the final one being made when each ship was delivered. The shipbuilding and ship commission contacts came into effect at the same time, and Plaintiff and Defendant agreed that if the buyer failed to make an installment payment on the shipbuilding contracts, Defendant could withhold payment of an installment under the commission contracts. The four ships were completed and delivered to the buyer, but Defendant did not pay all installments of the commissions due to Plaintiff on three of the four ships, arguing that Plaintiff had not assisted Defendant in recovering repayments under a loan that Defendant had made to the buyer of the ships. Plaintiff sued seeking payment of the outstanding commissions.