“Last year the Court of Appeal ruled that responsibility for the collision between Alexandra I (container ship) and Eversmart (tanker) was to be apportioned 80:20. The claims totalled some USD36m. The Admiralty Court recently assessed recoverable damages at USD9.3m for Alexandra I and USD2.53 for Eversmart. The Court declined to award extended loss to Alexandra I on the basis of "impecuniosity" of her Owners (said to cause delay to repairs, causing loss of market and eventual judicial sale). The owners had failed on the facts to establish the necessary causation between collision and delay/market collapse.”

“Following default in owners' repayments, a ship was repossessed and sold by the claimant mortgagee bank who then sought a shortfall from the guarantor. The Court ruled that a defence of "sale at undervalue" although technically available to the guarantor, was unsustainable on the facts. Despite the sale price being just over the book debt it was nonetheless reasonable. Nor did sale to a client of the appointed S&P brokers involve a "connected person" such as to reverse the burden of proof.”

“The claimant bank had provided a loan for the purchase of a vessel; alleging default, it called in the loan and arrested the vessel as security for its claim. Owners sought release of the vessel unless the bank provided a cross-undertaking in damages. In an urgent but landmark ruling the Admiralty Court held that it had no jurisdiction to require such an undertaking.“

“An alleged tort (damage to sub-marine cable by a fishing trawler) occurring outside the UK's Territorial Waters but within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) was not within the jurisdiction of the English Court, pursuant to Article 7 of the re-cast Judgments Regulation. An earlier case - tonocophillips' - could be distinguished as that involved damage to an exploration installation (there, an oil platform) for which UNCLOS confers special jurisdictional rights.”

“A vessel once operating as pirate radio station "Radio Caroline" was considered to be abandoned by the owner despite absence of an express statement by the owner to that end. Failure to engage in a court process, and a clear absence of interest in the vessel over a sustained period of time, led the Court to infer that owner had abandoned its rights of ownership. The claimant 'caretaker' was able to become owner of the vessel since no other party, including the Crown, had asserted a better right.”

“The Admiralty Court ruled that a vessel exiting the channel (of a UAE port) bore 80% responsibility for a collision with an entering vessel. The former had failed to navigate on the starboard side of the channel, to keep a proper lookout or develop a safe speed or take avoiding action. The latter, although it failed to keep a proper aural lookout, nevertheless maintained a safe speed and took immediate avoiding action. “