Except during those six days no ships went through, and so no revenues were collect. That is, Egypt could have gotten more revenue if no ships were delayed—and remember some ships started going around Cape Horn in South Africa.
It's about the 'opportunity cost' of the blockage.
Also I am not a lawyer, but if I were one, I would wonder if there have been previous outages like this and how has that cost been recovered? And how many times has the canal delayed the ships anyways and not paid them?
Also would the canal pay from this money the ships that were delayed as they were also an affected party.
The game can be played from multiple sides.
> It's about the 'opportunity cost' of the blockage.
I really wish it was named something else, because it causes all sorts of confusion:
> A common misconception about no-fault insurance is that insurance companies won't determine who is at fault after an accident. However, this isn't the case. According to the Ontario Insurance Act, in every accident with multiple drivers, insurance companies must always assign a percentage of fault to each driver involved. Other provinces have similar laws.
> No-fault insurance simply means your insurance company will handle your claim and pay your damages regardless of who is determined to be at fault for causing the collision. The other person’s insurance company will do the same.
* https://www.insurancehotline.com/resources/no-fault-insuranc...
There are legislated rules on determining fault in the most common cases:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Fault_Determination_Ru...
It makes no sense for the lost transit fees to be paid by the insurance companies as most vessels waited the 6-day period and then got to traverse the canal with some days in delay (so Egypt still got that money).
In the end the claim seems exaggerate and might be indicative of Egypt's lack of focus on long term relations. It's one thing to pay 500'000 USD for a passage, but if I know that I have a 0.05% probability of paying 1 billion dollars (which is another 500'000 USD expected payout on average) then surrounding Africa without any fees is all of a sudden a lot more attractive.