Cases of liability for wrongful arrest in Admiralty are rare: successful claims, which require a showing of malice or gross negligence, even more so. We now have an account of one at the end of last year in Singapore. Bunker suppliers sold bunkers to the (now-very-bankrupt) OW Group; they were passed on paper through other OW companies, one of which fuelled the vessel. It’s elementary law that if A sells to B and B to C, then A has no claim against C: it was also plain to any third-year law student that the suppliers hadn’t a cat in hell’s chance of showing agency in any of the OW companies. Nevertheless, having voluntarily given credit to the uncreditworthy, the suppliers blithely went and arrested the ship in Singapore. Not surprisingly they were held liable in damages. The case is The Xin Chang Shu [2015] SGHC 308. The judgment, worth a look, is here; a useful note on it can be found here.
With thanks to Prof E Macdonald for the tip-off.
AT
