I'm with Sunfish on this "holding a/c thingy". Not only may the agreement be worthless if the a/c are leased the actual owner cannot be held liable for the a/p loss.
I think AsA had some success on liens back in the Compass 1 & 2 days, but I pretty certain back them the gov had written that into legislation. If my memory is correct there was an uproar when they held the a/c and demanded payment from the lessors. Cannot recall how this panned out.