Deductions from Charter Hire Made in Good Faith and on Reasonable Grounds?

London Arbitration 1/22

Disputes often arise in time charters on whether any deduction from charter hire can be made especially when there is an alleged underperformance of the chartered vessel.

It is well established principle of law that if a deduction is made from hire, such deduction must be made in good faith and be based on reasonable grounds (otherwise such deduction amounts to breach of contract on the part of the charterer). This effectively means that in case of a deduction for underperformance of the chartered vessel, the charterer might be called upon at short notice to demonstrate that its deductions were made bona fidei and its calculations were based in reasonable grounds (The Kostas Melas [1981] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 18).

This was the central issue in this dispute. The charterers withheld US$ 53,550.40 gross in respect of what they claimed was time loss due to underperformance to the extent of 6.6938 days (off-hire).

When the tribunal asked the charterers to demonstrate a prima facie case as to whether the deduction from hire was made bona fidei and on reasonable grounds, they responded with a report of weather routing company they appointed, some further comments from that company and the fact that the owners did not appoint their own weather routing company.

The tribunal found that charterers failed to address the question of good faith nor had they made any attempt to show that they had a claim for off hire. It was also noted by the tribunal that the charterers did not address the point made by the owners that there was no speed/consumption warranty in the charterparty as the fixture description of the ship was qualified by the words “all details about/in good faith”.

The tribunal here was simply deciding that the charterers had not shown that their deduction was made in good faith and on reasonable grounds so they were wrong to withheld the deduction from hire. It is theoretically open to charterers to claim that there was an underperformance of the chartered vessel but as hinted by the tribunal, based on the wording in the charterparty qualifying the performance of the vessel, it will be an uphill struggle to prove the existence of a speed/consumption warranty and the fact that it was breached!        

 

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Professor Barış Soyer

Professor Soyer was appointed a lecturer at the School of Law, Swansea University in 2001 and was promoted to readership in 2006 and professorship in 2009. He was appointed Director of the Institute of Shipping and Trade Law at the School of Law, Swansea in October 2010. He was previously a lecturer at the University of Exeter. His postgraduate education was in the University of Southampton from where he obtained his Ph.D degree in 2000. Whilst at Southampton he was also a part-time lecturer and tutor. His principal research interest is in the field of insurance, particularly marine insurance, but his interests extend broadly throughout maritime law and contract law. He is the author of Warranties in Marine Insurance published by Cavendish Publishing (2001), and an impressive list of articles published in elite Journals such as Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly, Berkley Journal of International Law, Journal of Contract Law and Journal of Business Law. His first book was the joint winner of the Cavendish Book Prize 2001 and was awarded the British Insurance Law Association Charitable Trust Book Prize in 2002, for the best contribution to insurance literature. A new edition of this book was published in 2006. In 2008, he edited a collection of essays published by Informa evaluating the Law Commissions' Reform Proposals in Insurance Law: Reforming Commercial and Marine Insurance Law. This book has been cited on numerous occasions in the Consultation Reports published by English and Scottish Law Commissions and also by the Irish Law Reform Commission and has been instrumental in shaping the nature of law reform. In recent years, he edited several books in partnership with Professor Tettenborn: Pollution at Sea: Law and Liability, published by Informa in 2012; Carriage of Goods by Sea, Land and Air, published by Informa in 2013 and Offshore Contracts and Liabilities, published by Informa Law from Routledge in 2014. His most recent monograph, Marine Insurance Fraud, was published in 2014 by Informa Law from Routledge. His teaching experience extends to the under- and postgraduate levels, including postgraduate teaching of Carriage of Goods by Sea, Transnational Commercial Law, Marine Insurance, Admiralty Law and Oil and Gas Law. He is one of the editors of the Journal of International Maritime Law and is also on the editorial board of Shipping and Trade Law and Baltic Maritime Law Quarterly. He currently teaches Admiralty Law, Oil and Gas Law and Marine Insurance on the LLM programme and also is the Head of the Department of Postgraduate Legal Studies at Swansea.

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