Deadfreight. Charterer’s nominated berth frustrates owner’s option as to quantity to load.

In London Arbitration 7/21 a vessel was chartered to carry coal. The owners were given the option to load between 27,000 and 33,000 mt of cargo, and the charterers were bound to provide a safe port/berth at the specified terminal. The owners exercised their option to load 33,000 mt

Prior to the fixture being concluded the owners had emailed the charterers’ agents at the loading port and had been advised that the maximum draft at the terminal was in excess of 13 m. The agents indicated that the vessel would berth at a specified berth where the vessel would have had no problem in loading 33,000 mt.

Charterers ordered vessel to load at a different berth where there was a lower maximum sailing draft and failed to change the berth nomination. There was a shortfall of 1,590 mt of cargo.

The tribunal held that the owners were entitled to exercise their option as to cargo quantity unfettered, and the charterers were bound to load whatever amount the owners opted for up to 33,000 mt. If, by their choice of berth, the charterers prevented the vessel from loading that quantity, they put themselves in breach of that obligation. By ordering the vessel to a berth where the draft was so limited as to stop the vessel loading 33,000 mt, the charterers frustrated the exercise of the owners’ option. Charterers were liable to owners in damages for the shortfall in cargo loaded

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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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