“After charterers' repudiation of a time charter of a cruise ship, owners later sold the vessel to a third party for more than US$23m. The Arbitrator found that the sale was made in mitigation of losses as the ship was valued at some US$7m at the time the vessel should have been redelivered. Therefore, he disallowed owners' damages. The Supreme Court confirmed the High Court ruling that owners' benefit was not legally caused by the breach of the charterparty. The breach could have been the occasion but not the legal cause for the sale, which remains a commercial decision made at the owners' own risk and the exercise of owners' proprietary right which they enjoy independent of the charterparty.”

“A prolonged port stay clause in a time charter (20 running days, tropical waters) both protected Owners against underperformance claims and required Charterers to clean the hull; the Tribunal considered that the Clause still operated even though the Vessel had not remained in exactly the same place during the relevant stay. Further, it was sufficient to establish 'fouling directly resulting' from the stay, that the Vessel did not underperform after the cleaning.”

“An alleged tort (damage to sub-marine cable by a fishing trawler) occurring outside the UK's Territorial Waters but within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) was not within the jurisdiction of the English Court, pursuant to Article 7 of the re-cast Judgments Regulation. An earlier case - tonocophillips' - could be distinguished as that involved damage to an exploration installation (there, an oil platform) for which UNCLOS confers special jurisdictional rights.”

“The demurrage rate net of commission was used by an arbitral tribunal to calculate damages for detention, even though the Charterparty did not contain any reference to commission in the event of detention. Awarding damages on the basis of the gross demurrage rate was not deemed appropriate as Owners would have only received the net amount had they been paid demurrage for the delay.”

“A vessel once operating as pirate radio station "Radio Caroline" was considered to be abandoned by the owner despite absence of an express statement by the owner to that end. Failure to engage in a court process, and a clear absence of interest in the vessel over a sustained period of time, led the Court to infer that owner had abandoned its rights of ownership. The claimant 'caretaker' was able to become owner of the vessel since no other party, including the Crown, had asserted a better right.”

“An agreement for the operation of Nigerian oil wells contained a London arbitration clause and the High Court issued an injunction in support of the arbitration, restraining the defendants from taking certain default steps under the agreement; the Court ruled that default steps had been taken, in breach of the injunction, and held the defendants to be in Contempt of Court.”