Hanjin doesn't own the goods; they're just transporting them. The owners of the goods are also by now creditors of the bankrupt company (for late fees if nothing else). That's why it's a snarl.
Wonder if it'd be feasible and/or make sense for the owners of the goods to pool their money together in order to pay the docking fees so they could receive their goods.
It'd be a neat resolution, but that's basically telling one set of creditors to make a second set of creditors whole out of their own pockets. And there's likely thousands of them with multiple layers: eg, your new iPhone 7 is stuck on one of these ships. Are you the owner, or is Apple? or Foxconn? etc.
The answer to that question is not complicated. It's either Apple or Foxconn, and it's clearly determined in their contract. One of them has it on their books as current inventory, not both.
That would be a quite naive solution for the owner of the goods. The owners do not have to pay anything essentially. Hanjin is still responsible to unload the goods at any cost (e.g. selling their ships to someone else).
