Month: August 2017

Court’s power  to order sale of liened cargo

In The Moscow Stars [2017] EWHC 2150 (Comm) a cargo of crude oil was loaded in October 2016 under a time charter with PDVSA, the Venezuelan state-owned oil and gas company. Shortly afterwards the owners gave notice of lien to charterers in respect of shortfalls of hire accruing since January 2016. The charter provided for London arbitration and December 2016 the claimant sought and obtained permission from the arbitral tribunal to apply to the court for an order for sale of the cargo.  The vessel with its cargo is currently drifting off Curacao, there being no other viable way of exercising the lien such as discharge into storage.

The first question before the court was whether the court had jurisdiction to order a sale under s.44 of the Arbitration Act 1996. Under s44(1) the court has “same power of making orders about the matters listed below as it has for purposes of and in relation to legal proceedings.”  The matters listed below are set out in s44(2) and heading (d) provides for “the sale of any goods the subject of the proceedings.” Males J held that the court did have power to order a sale and s.44(2)(d) applied where a contractual lien is being exercised over a defendant’s goods as security for a claim which is being advanced in arbitration. The time charterer here was the owner of the cargo. There was no need to consider the position had the cargo been owned by a third party that was not a party to the arbitration.

The second question was whether an order for sale fell within the powers of the court under CPR 25.1 which gives the court the power to make an order for “the sale of relevant property which is of a perishable nature or which for any other good reason it is desirable to sell quickly.”  The cargo was not perishable but there were good reasons why it was desirable for it to be sold quickly. The cargo had been on board the vessel for over nine months and, in the absence of an order, would likely remain there for many months to come.  This prejudiced the owner which was not receiving hire but was continuing to incur the operating costs of the vessel and was faced with approaching deadlines to drydock in January 2018 to comply with SOLAS and Class requirements.  Accordingly, Males J  ordered that the cargo be sold and directed the time charterers to sign any contract of sale as the seller.

 

 

Salvage Convention time limit and recovery of items from wreck

 

The time limit for salvage claims under article 23(1) of the 1989 Salvage Convention article 23(1) is two years commencing on the day on which the salvage operations are terminated. Where items are salved from a historic wreck, when does the two year limit start to run? This was the issue before Teare J. in  The Queen (on the application of David Knight) v Secretary of State for Transport [2017] EWHC 1722 (Admin).

Mr Knight undertook dives from various wrecks and claimed salvage from the Receiver of Wreck. The claim was denied on the ground that the two year limit had expired by the time salvage was claimed in respect of the items raised from the wrecks. Mr Knight argued that salvage operations of a wreck on the sea-bed cannot, as a matter of law, be considered to be finished or complete until everything is raised from the sea-bed or the salvor abandons his operations.

Teare J rejected this contention. The day on which salvage operations are terminated is the day on which the activities to assist a vessel or any other property in danger and which have given rise to a claim under the Convention have been terminated. This was a question of fact to be determined in every case. Here, the salvage operations in question had terminated after the salved items left the site. Although further diving operations on the wrecks continued in subsequent years this was not enough to show that they were part of the same operations as resulted in the recovery of the items for which salvage was claimed. Further preservation work on the items once ashore did not continue the salvage operations which ended once the items were rescued from danger on navigable or other waters.

The claim had also been rejected on the ground of fraud or dishonest conduct on the part of Mr Knight who had been convicted of offences in relation to the salved items under s. 237 of  the Merchant Shipping Act 1995. Teare J was of the view that the discretion under art. 18 to refuse a salvage award in whole or in part due to fraud or dishonest conduct was not limited to conduct committed by the salvor in the actual salvage operations.

Implied indemnity and the Inter-Club Agreement

 

When an owner settles cargo claims, is the Inter-Club Agreement (ICA) the exclusive means of seeking recovery from a charterer under a charter containing the ICA, or can recovery be made under the implied indemnity? This was the issue before the tribunal in London Arbitration 19/17. The head owners settled claims under the bills of lading in respect of condensation damage to a cargo of steel carried from various ports in China and Taiwan to Antwerp. The principal cause of sweat developing was the difference in the ambient temperature between the Chinese loading ports and the loading port in Taiwan. The head owners then recovered a contribution from the time charterers under the ICA which was incorporated into the charter, which was on NYPE form. The disponent owners then sought to recover the full amount of what they had paid the head owners from their sub-charterer. The sub charter was also on NYPE form incorporating the ICA. They claimed this by way of an implied indemnity, on the ground that the claims had arisen as a consequence of following charterers’ orders to load cargo into the same holds at different ports with varying temperatures, so resulting in the cargo sweat which damaged the cargo.

 

The tribunal rejected this claim on two grounds. First, the disponent owners had agreed to a voyage, which inevitably involved the possibility of loading cold cargo which then had to be carried through warmer waters to the destination and the risk of cargo sweat occurring was something the disponent owners had agreed to undertake. Second, for cargo claims the implied indemnity gave way to the express provision that cargo claims were to be apportioned between owners and charterers in accordance with the ICA. On the facts these cargo claims were subject to 50-50 apportionment under cl. 8(d).

 

 

The difficult we do immediately. The impossible, at least offshore, takes a little longer.

It can be disconcerting to find, towards the beginning of the report of a decision in the Supreme Court, something like this:

image

Don’t despair. The point at issue in the August 3 case of MT Hojgaard AS v EON Climate and Renewables UK Robin Rigg East Ltd [2017] UKSC 59  was actually quite straightforward.

Problems appeared in a wind-farm off the Cumbrian coast, which were traceable to weaknesses in the foundations. The owners, E-ON, sued the constructor, Hojgaard, for breach of contract. In particular they relied on a warranty that the structure had been built to last for 20 years. There was some doubt over the meaning of the warranty (did it mean the thing would last 20 years, as the parties thought, or that its design was such that it ought to do so, as Lord Neuberger opined?); but the point didn’t matter, since here the collapse took place only a very short time after the whole caboodle had been built in the first place.

The claim thus looked straightforward, but here a difficulty arose. Like all major construction projects, the constructor had to observe detailed specifications. In this case the specification was named J101 (a technical specification prepared by acknowledged experts DNV — don’t ask further), which not only embodied the fearsome formula above, but which turned out to have a major defect in it. And the problems were due to this defect. Hojgaard argued that E-ON could hardly complain where Hojgaard had merely followed instructions: E-ON riposted that that was all very well, but a warranty was a warranty, and this one had been broken.

The Supreme Court confirmed what construction lawyers had always assumed was the case (see decisions such as Cammell Laird v Manganese Bronze [1934] AC 402 and Steel Co of Canada v Willand Management [1966] SCR 746): namely, that the warranty continued to apply even though in a sense inconsistent with the specification and thus impossible to satisfy. And, in the view of us at Maricom, rightly so. If a sophisticated business chooses to promise that something will happen come hell or high water, the fact that it turns out to have promised the impossible should not let it off the hook: that’s what warranties are all about.

The case is not of earth-shattering significance. DNV smartly changed its specifications in late 2009, so the particular issue here won’t affect wind-farm contracts signed after that date. As for the future, lawyers for constructors would do well to advise them to change their wording, making it clear that in so far as customers order structures to a particular specification, any warranties are qualified so as to prevent those customers both eating their cake and having it. If lawyers don’t do this, their PI insurers can expect some embarrassed phone calls; if construction companies don’t follow any such advice then that’s their look-out. But the decision in the Hojgaard case could still have some ramifications in respect of some older structures; to that extent at least it’s worth filing away a note.

EU Member States urged to ratify/accede to 2010 HNS Convention by 6 May 2021.

 

COUNCIL DECISION (EU) 2017/769 of 25.4.2017 authorises Member States to ratify or accede to the 2010 Protocol of the HNS Convention with the exception of the aspects related to judicial cooperation in civil matters. The decision also provides that they “shall endeavour to take the necessary steps to deposit the instruments of ratification of, or accession to, the Protocol of 2010 within a reasonable time and, if possible, by 6 May 2021”.

 

A parallel COUNCIL DECISION (EU) 2017/770 contains a similar authorization in relation to those aspects related to judicial cooperation in civil matters, subject to depositing the standard declaration preserving the effect of the Brussels I (Recast) Regulation, the Lugano Convention, and the 2005 agreement between the EU and Denmark in respect of judgments covered by the 2010 HNS Protocol.