Supply Lines is a daily newsletter that tracks trade and supply chains disrupted by the pandemic. Sign up here . The immediate crisis of the Suez Canal blockage may have ended , but the battle over damages from the waterway’s longest closure in almost half a century is just beginning. The long-term cost of the canal’s estimated $10-billion-a-day closure will likely be small, given that global merchandise trade amounts to $18 trillion a year. Yet with cargoes delayed for weeks if not months, the blockage could unleash a flood of claims by everyone affected, from the shipping lines to manufacturers and oil producers. “The legal issues are so enormous,” said Alexis Cahalan , a partner at Norton White in Sydney, which specializes in transport law. “If you can imagine the variety of cargoes that are there — everything from oil, grain, consumer goods like refrigerators to perishable goods — […]