Official blog of Swansea University's IISTL, where we keep you up to date with the latest maritime and commercial legal news.
Switch bills. Initial shipper off the hook for freight due under bill of lading.
The effect of switch bills with a new shipper in the second set has the effect of a novation of the initial contract contained or evidenced in the initial bill with the shipowner as carrier under the bill. So held Stevenson J in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in The Illawarra Fortune [2020] NSWSC 183. Both sets incorporated the freight payable under a voyage charterparty with the time charterer of the vessel. The initial shipper, whose parent company was the voyage charterer, ceased to be liable for unpaid freight once the second bills were issued naming a different shipper. Had the original bills not been switched the time charterer, as assignee of the shipowner’s rights under the bills of lading, would have been able to sue the original shipper for freight due under the voyage charter with the shipper’s parent company.
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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