In London Arbitration 3/20 the Tribunal considered the effect of the time bar provision in cl.6 of the Inter-Club NYPE Agreement 2011 (the ICA) .
“(6) Recovery under this Agreement by an Owner or charterer shall be deemed to be waived and absolutely barred unless written notification of the Cargo Claim has been given to the other party to the charterparty within 24 months of the date of delivery of the cargo or the dates the cargo should have been delivered, save that, where the Hamburg Rules or any national legislation giving effect thereto are compulsorily applicable by operation of law to the contract of carriage or to that part of the transit that comprised carriage on the chartered vessel, the period shall be 36 months. Such notification shall if possible include details of the contract of carriage, the nature of the claim and the amount claimed.”
The vessel was time-chartered on the NYPE form. Clause 27 of the charter expressly incorporated the ICA and contained a Clause Paramount. Under a booking note on the charterer’s house form dated 19 December 2014 between the charterer as carrier and G as merchant, the charterer contracted to carry a cargo of engine equipment (the Cargo) from a United States port to a North African port. During the voyage the vessel’s crew accidentally pumped water into No 2 cargo hold. G gave notice to the charterer of its intention to pursue a cargo claim against it as contractual carrier, although no claim had yet been formally presented. By various emails, information was passed by G to the charterer and by the charterer to the owners, and extensions of time were given by the charterer to G, and by the owners and their P&I Club to the charterer.
The issue before the Tribunal was whether, following the expiry of 24 months from the date of delivery of the cargo, the charterer was now precluded by the time bar provision in clause (6) of the ICA from bringing any claim against the owners in respect of G’s intended cargo claim.
The Tribunal found that the “notification” did not have to refer to the ICA, either expressly or impliedly. Clause (6) required simply “written notification of the Cargo Claim” to be given to the other party. It was not in itself the claim for recovery under the ICA but was a notice required if a claim over was later to be made, which could only happen when the cause of action accrued, which necessitated the proper settlement or compromise and payment of the third-party claim under the terms of clause (4)(c).
To be an effective “notification”, the written notice did not have to comply with the requirements of the second sentence, namely to include details of the contract of carriage, the nature of the claim and the amount claimed, so far as it was possible to do so. The intention of the draftsman was to distinguish between the absence of a written notification which would bar the recovery claim and the absence of details to be included within it, if possible, which would not have that effect. The words “if possible” suggested that the provision of details was not essential to the giving of notification. The breach of such an obligation would give rise to a right to damages if any loss could be established, which appeared unlikely in most situations.
In consequence, as the tribunal had found that a notification was valid, even if details which could have been provided were not provided, and the recourse claim which the charterer wished to pursue was not deemed waived or barred.
Clause (6) of the ICA operated in an entirely different way from a conventional time bar for a cargo claim. The period allowed for notification ran from the date of delivery and not from the date when the cause of action accrued which, in the case of an indemnity might not be for a number of years, as and when the liability to cargo interests crystallised. To stop time running, the prospective claimant did not have to commence proceedings but merely to give notification of the claim under clause (6), with the six-year time bar operating from the date of accrual of the cause of action.