The Irish Court of Appeal has recently decided in The Almirante Storni [2020] IECA 58 that a claim against the demise charterer by a ship’s agent in respect of disbursements made to the vessel on the orders of the time charterer does not constitute a “maritime claim” within the meaning of article 1 of the International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to the Arrest of Sea-Going Ships done at Brussels on 10 May 1952 (The Arrest Convention). Insofar as the claim involved “disbursements” they were not disbursements made by the master but by the ship’s agents.
Article 1(n) of the Arrest Convention did not entitle an agent to maintain a claim against the owner of the vessel for disbursements made by such agent “on behalf of a ship”, in the absence of any personal liability on the part of the owner. The argument that the time charterer ordered services from the plaintiff as agent of the owners was not tenable. There was no evidence of any actual or ostensible authority to support a finding of agency.
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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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Remember that the Irish legislation is a bit different from s.20 of the SCA. It incorporates the 1952 Convention lock stock and barrel. This can lead to some differences in result.