Official blog of Swansea University's IISTL, where we keep you up to date with the latest maritime and commercial legal news.
Weight of undamaged pallets and Montreal Convention package limitation.
On 11 October 2018 (I ZR 18/18) the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled on the calculation of the Montreal Convention package limitation of 19 SDRs per kilo under art. 22(3). Article 22(4)(1) stipulates that compensation may not exceed the amount payable in the event of loss of the devalued part of a consignment. The claim was in respect of a consignment consisted of 1,000kg of goods and 250kg of pallets. The BGH ruled that in considering the weight relevant to the package limitation no account should be taken of the weight of the pallets which were undamaged. Only the net weight of the damaged goods was to be taken into account and so the claimant’s maximum damages claim would be 19,000 SDRs (1,000kg by 19 SDRs) and not 23,750 SDRs as claimed.
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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