Charterer’s use of vessel as a floating warehouse an ‘act’ under the Inter-Club Agreement

 

 

In the Yangste Xing Hua [2016] EWHC 3132 (Comm) Teare J has construed the reference to ‘act or neglect of’ charterers or shipowners in cl.8 (d) of the 1996 Inter-Club Agreement as encompassing any act whether or not culpable. The relevant provision reads:

(d) All other cargo claims whatsoever (including claims for delay to cargo):

50% Charterers

50% Owners

unless there is clear and irrefutable evidence that the claim arose out of the act or neglect of the one or the other (including their servants or sub-contractors) in which case that party shall then bear 100% of the claim.”

 

Cargo damage arose due to overheating while the vessel waited off the discharge port in Iran for four months. The trip charterers had ordered the vessel to wait there as they had not been paid for the cargo. The resulting cargo damage fell under cl.8(d) of the ICA and was 100% for charterer’s account as it had arisen from their ‘act’.

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Professor Simon Baughen

Professor Simon Baughen was appointed as Professor of Shipping Law in September 2013 (previously Reader at the University of Bristol Law School). Simon Baughen studied law at Oxford and practised in maritime law for several years before joining academia. His research interests lie mainly in the field of shipping law, but also include the law of trusts and the environmental law implications of the activities of multinational corporations in the developing world. Simon's book on Shipping Law, has run to seven editions (soon to be eight) and is already well-known to academics and students alike as by far the most learned and approachable work on the subject. Furthermore, he is now the author of the very well-established practitioner's work Summerskill on Laytime. He has an extensive list of publications to his name, including International Trade and the Protection of the Environment, and Human Rights and Corporate Wrongs - Closing the Governance Gap. He has also written and taught extensively on commercial law, trusts and environmental law. Simon is a member of the Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law, a University Research Centre within the School of Law, and he currently teaches at Swansea on the LLM in:Carriage of Goods by Sea, Land and Air; Charterparties Law and Practice; International Corporate Governance.

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