“The Claimants purchased bunker from OW to supply two vessels in 2014. In respect of each supply, a Tribunal held that it had jurisdiction over disputes by reason of a London arbitration clause in OW's 2013 terms and pursuant to that, held t OW's claim for payment to have been validly assigned to ING Bank. The Claimants sought a re-hearing under s67 of the Arbitration Act. The Court declined to find that the (recently introduced) arbitration clause had not been brought to the Claimants' attention; that there was a course of dealing between the parties excluding the 2013 terms or that they were varied by correspondence. Nor did the Court's s.27 jurisdiction extend to re-hearing the assignment issue.”

“In respect of its claim for damages for breach of contract, W issued a claim form on 19 June 2017, the day before expiry of the 6 year limitation period, and sent it, just before its validity expired, 4 months later, to P's solicitors, who had no authority to accept service. Accordingly, service was ineffective, the time bar had passed and the claim form expired. The Court of Appeal declined to allow "retrospective validation of service", the required "good reason" not having been established: Neither P nor its solicitors had a duty to advise of their lack of authorisation, they were not playing "technical games" and conversely W had "courted disaster" by leaving issue and service to the last moment.”

“Under an amended Synacomex 90 c/p, an NOR was valid (by reason of c1.8 and 'WIPON') when served at the designated location (even if outside port limits), the intended loading place then being unavailable and the Master having warranted hold readiness. Subsequent hold inspection failure did not invalidate the NOR (as in the Mexico I) because the c/p specified the laytime effects of hold failure.”

“A LMAA tribunal set a time for charterers' defence "on a peremptory basis" (10 weeks after service of the claim, both the 28-day period and an extension set by order having expired). The tribunal declined charterers' application to be allowed to serve their defence and counterclaim late, rejecting charterers' complaint that the Tribunal had not specified, when making the peremptory order, which of the 4 possible sanctions it would adopt (under s.41 (7) Arbitration Act), pointing to the 'norm' being an award, and indicating that it was not open to the Tribunal to review a peremptory deadline, once it had passed. Nor did the refusal amount to dismissal of the counterclaim — this could not occur without the counterclaim having been brought in the first place.”

“Clause 12(e) of a c/p on an amended Bimco SupplyTime 2017 form contained provided that payments of hire, fuel invoices and disbursements should be paid by Charterers within a certain number of days (21) from the date of receipt of the invoice without the possibility to discount or set-off. It also provided that if Charterer believed that the invoice was incorrect, they should still pay the undisputed portion of the invoice and withhold payment of the rest notifying the reason to the Owners by the due date. The Court dismissed Charterers' appeal based on the arguments that the clause was unclear or ambiguous as did not state that a failure to give notice would debar Charterers opportunity to raise any defence. The Court held that the clause was clear and is not analogous to a time bar clause or any other type of clause limiting liability and it was just the result of a commercial agreement between two equal bargaining powers that obliged charterers to raise bona fide disputes timeously as timeously payments are of essence in time charters. According to the Court a different interpretation would "make clause 12(e) a dead letter".”

“The Court declined to grant owners an anti-suit injunction restraining proceedings against them by buyers of a cargo of cycle oil carried on board their vessel. An implied contract (said by owners (i) to arise out of buyers' conduct and (ii) to include a B/L exclusive English law/jurisdiction clause -ECJ) even if established, was insufficient to satisfy Art.25 of the Recast Brussels Regulation: whilst the B/L was in writing, the required consent to it and its ECJ was not.”