Cargo was delivered without B/Ls, against LOIs from Voyage Charterers Aeturnum and Time Charterers Navig8. ING bank, claiming to be holders, arrested the Vessel and sought damages of USD8.5m from head owners. Aeturnum failed to take steps and Navig8 placed security to release the Vessel. The Court held that cargo was delivered in accordance with Aeturnum’s instructions, engaging their LOI to Navig8, which was breached (alleged impecuniosity being neither made out nor an excuse). It ordered specific performance (requiring Navig8’s security to be replaced) and damages for Navig8’s loss of use during arrest, Navig8’s further losses being stood over pending ING’s judgment in Singapore.

Owners claimed that Charterers’ failure to discharge within laytime, gave rise not only to demurrage but also a cargo deterioration claim against Owners by Receivers. The CA, reversing Baker J’s decision, held that demurrage was Owners’ sole remedy – it “liquidates the whole of the damages arising from… failing to complete cargo operations within the laytime”. Breach of a separate obligation was required to claim additional damages for delay and as Owners failed to plead it, recovery of such damages was precluded.

When their cargo of copper was replaced by cobblestones, Mercuria commenced proceedings in Turkey against carrier Maersk, who, 5 weeks later, sought an anti-suit injunction (‘ASI’) to enforce the B/Ls’ exclusive English jurisdiction clause. Mercuria argued that Maersk had deliberately delayed until the expiry of the B/Ls’ time bar - so an ASI would cause prejudice as English proceedings would be fatally flawed. The Court nevertheless granted the ASI: the time bar was usual, nothing had prevented Mercuria commencing English protective proceedings or required Maersk to seek the ASI any earlier.

Owners of CMA CGM Libra, grounded after straying from a buoyed fairway, appealed a ruling that their (causative) failure to update charts to show “numerous depths less than charted” rendered the vessel unseaworthy (Art. III r.1 Hague Rules). Dismissing the appeal, the SC held that seaworthiness was not confined to physical defects, nor were seaworthiness and navigational matters distinct categories. Negligent navigation, here by not updating charts, caused the unseaworthiness, to which Art IV r.2 was no defence, and Owners were under a non-delegable duty to make the vessel seaworthy.

In a dispute over rent escalation provisions, Aircraft Lessors sought an order for disclosure of data held on mobile phones of the Saudi Arabian Lessee’s employees. The employer’s right to possession/ access to the phones, pursuant to Saudi law, could not be made out, nor (c.f. English law) could such right be presumed. Therefore, the necessary “control” element for an order under the Disclosure Pilot Scheme (PD51U) was absent, and the Court had no authority under CPR to order exercise of “best endeavours” to obtain documents not within a respondent’s control.

The Panamax Alexander (“PA”), bound for Iran, struck the Osios David (“OD”) and a Collision Jurisdiction Agreement on the ASG2 form (the ‘CJA’) was agreed, requiring security “reasonably satisfactory to the other”. OD refused PA’s Club LOU tendered, on the grounds that risk of non-payment under its sanction clause would “effectively render the LOU useless”. Alleging that the refusal was a breach of the CJA, PA sought as damages the cost of the alternative security provided. Although finding that, given the Iranian nexus, inclusion of the tendered clause was reasonable, the Court held that on a true construction, the CJA did not oblige OD to accept that security (it remaining the recipient’s choice to accept an LOU or arrest) and PA’s claim failed.