Life can be demanding for bareboat charterers, whether they are simply chartering in, or using a bareboat charter from a bank as a financing device.
In Silverburn Shipping v Ark Shipping [2019] EWHC 376 (Comm) owners under a Barecon1989 charter had suspicions as to their Korean charterers’ ability and intention to look after the vessel properly, and terminated the charter. One reason they gave was that the charterer had allowed the BV classification to lapse a short time before the vessel went into dry dock, thus breaking its obligation under Clause 9 to “keep the Vessel with unexpired classification of the class … and with other required certificates in force at all times”. Arbitrators refused to order the immediate redelivery of the vessel, holding that the duty to maintain class was not absolute, but rather to renew any expired entry in a reasonable time, and in adition that the duty to maintain the vessel in class was an intermediate term and not a condition.
On a s.69 appeal, Carr J disagreed. She saw no reason to read the obligation to keep the vessel in class as anything other than an absolute duty. Further, while accepting that the oft-emphasised requirement of commercial certainty could be over-used and could not “be deployed as some trump card” (a bon mot at para.[53] that is likely to find its way quickly into textbooks and counsel’s argument), she decided that the duty to keep in class was a condition of the contract, Breach of it could be serious in respect of the tradeability of the ship, and affect insurance, ship mortgage and flag: entry in class was moreover a black-and-white criterion with no shades of grey which was redolent of the idea of a condition.
This is something that needs to be taken seriously by charterers. Although the wording of Clause 13 of Barecon2017 differs slightly from the 1989 version, any discrepancy is minor and Carr J’s reasoning would, we suggest, continue to apply. Moreover, the right to terminate a bareboat charter can have considerable effects, particularly in the case of a financing charter with a purchase option: once the charter goes, so does the option. True, if the grounds for termination were wholly technical, in theory the court would have a right to relieve a bareboat charterer from forfeiture (The Jotunheim [2005] 1 Lloyd’s Rep. 181); but this is a difficult jurisdiction to persuade it to exercise, particularly in the face of an agreement for termination entered into by commercially-savvy parties. Charterers and borrowers, you have been warned.
