The Claimant cocoa traders sought to set aside an Award of the Board of Appeal of the Federation of Cocoa Commerce (FCC), on the basis of 'serious irregularity' (s.68) alleging bias of the Tribunal's chairman due to reasons including his participation in and querying of the Claimants' earlier application for FCC membership, his socialising with and previous trading with Defendants. The Court found no breach of any disclosure duty by the chairman and that a fair minded and informed observer would not consider that his limited involvement with the Defendants gave rise to a risk of bias. The Award (ruling that the Claimants' claim was time-barred) was confirmed.

Further to the vessel’s grounding, Cargo Interests claimed damages in respect of their payments to salvors, on-shipment costs and the physical damage to the cargo incurred during re-floating operations. The Carrier relied on Article IV(5)(a) of the Hague Visby Rules to argue that its liability was limited by reference to the weight of the limited quantity of cargo which had suffered physical damage. The Court found that the phrase “goods lost or damaged” in the article includes both physical and economic damage. The limit was thus to be calculated on the basis of the full cargo as the damages and costs incurred had diminished the value of or affected economically the cargo as a whole.

Vitol sold 30,000 mt fuel oil to JE, FOB Tema with laycan 23-24 December; further terms were envisaged, for example as to the L/C. JE failed to nominate a vessel to arrive Tema within laycan but Vitol continued to demand performance (rather than cancel) until on 1 February, JE declared the contract ‘null and void’ at which point Vitol treated JE as in repudiatory breach. JE argued that in context ‘laycan’ here simply indicated a loading period, which in the event was subsequently extended by agreement to 31 January. The Court found that ‘laycan’ had its traditional meaning and any agreed extension related solely to L/C arrangements. Vitol’s claim for market value (based on its own sales and statistics) of approximately USD3.3m was accepted.

The Claimant claimed fees under an introductory agency agreement. The Defendant alleged that the Claimant had breached financial services legislation - sec. 26(3) of the FSMA - rendering the agency unenforceable. The Claimant applied to strike out the defence and/or for summary judgment. The Court declined as (i) the subject is an area of developing jurisprudence and decisions on novel points of law should be based on actual findings of fact; (ii) given the uncertainty, it was not possible to conclude that the Defendant had no real prospect of success and (iii) a trial would still be needed to investigate the other defences related to the construction of the agency.

The Claimant Owners claimed unpaid T/C hire in High Court proceedings and to secure that claim, arrested a ship, believed to be in Charterers’ ownership, at Gibraltar. The Defendant Charterers sought to set off against hire (i) tortious damages for wrongful arrest; (ii) damages for breach of the C/P delivery/maintenance provisions by reason of hull fouling and (iii) underperformance.

In principle, the Court would have entertained (i) Gibraltar Admiralty law reflecting English law - but found the arrest not wrongful. It disallowed (ii) damages for hull fouling as they would duplicate (iii) the performance claim, which was partially allowed - some good weather underperformance having been made out.

In response to Owners’ demurrage claim under a Shellvoy 6, Charterers contended that in breach, the Vessel had left the discharge berth and refused to return. The Court upheld the Master’s decision finding that at all material times the berth left an unacceptable safety margin under the C/P (Q88) Under Keel Clearance policy, such that Owners could not be satisfied that the Vessel would discharge cargo always ‘safely afloat’ as required. There was no breach by Owners. Although not a necessary finding, the Court commented that almost certainly Charterers would have been in breach had they persisted in their orders.