By exchange of emails, a 20–24-month charter of the Vessel “Green Ace” was agreed between the Claimant Owners and Charterers “to be guaranteed by [Charterers’ parent, the Defendants, AGML]”. No formal C/P or Guarantee was drawn up. 2 days after delivery, Charterers advised “…unable to accept…. vessel on…current charter terms”, which Owners treated (and the Court confirmed) as repudiatory, seeking damages from AGML.  Rejecting AGML’s contentions, the Court found that the words used were sufficient to create an immediate-effect Guarantee on AGML’s part; the exchange of fixture emails by the parties’ authorised representatives satisfied the “writing” and “signed” requirement of the Statute of Frauds; and any mistake on Charterers’ part as to the Guarantee’s binding nature was not shared by Owners and provided no grounds for recission of the Guarantee.

Following the grounding of “Solomon Trader”, her time-charterers accrued liabilities of some USD47m towards owning interests. Amlin (charterers’ liability insurers), sought to rely on a “pay as may be paid” proviso in the policy to exclude liability to owning interests for liabilities the now-insolvent insured had failed to meet. Upholding the proviso, the Court ruled that, despite its subsidiary nature, it was not inconsistent with the policy’s main purpose, was not transformative of the insurance contract and was no different in essence from equivalent provisos in P&I and Hull policies.

The Claimant provided a financial facility of USD45m to D1 to support its ship-recycling business, secured by a personal guarantee of D2, who, during negotiations leading to the facility, presented a “Statement of Net Worth” of USD46m. D3 (CFO of D1) issued the required “Approved Borrower Statement”, asserting transactional compliance.  Repayments were not made and D2 provided a misleading “Statement of Delays”. The Court found all 3 Statements false and fraudulent, meant to deceive the Claimant, who relied on them. D2 and D3 were held liable for the torts of deceit and accessory liability respectively and Defendants collectively for unlawful means conspiracy, with damages to be assessed.

Sovcombank sought damages in the Russian courts after UK Sanctions prevented Barclays making payments under a financial facility. Supporting the facility's English exclusive jurisdiction clause, the Court granted Barclays not only an anti- suit injunction against Sovcombank but also a rare anti-enforcement injunction to further guard against a Russian judgment.

Following the sinking of the “X-Press Pearl” and the issue of English Limitation proceedings, the Defendant cargo claimants commenced proceedings in Sri Lanka, directly against the Vessel’s Club “as insurer”. The Club commenced London Arbitration (the forum specified by its Rules) against cargo claimants, seeking a declaration of non-liability; it also sought an anti-suit injunction. The Court ascertained that the claims were asserted under the insurance contract (rather than under any independent rights) so that the Rules, including “pay to be paid” applied, and granted the Club the injunction sought.

The Borrowers defaulted under a ship finance loan. Two vessels subject to the loan were arrested by other creditors and judicially sold by a port authority. Although joining in the arrests, the Claimant Lenders were initially unaware of the judicial sale of the vessels (for scrap) and received no proceeds. Granting the Lenders’ summary judgment application for the full outstanding loan amounts, the Court ruled that the Lenders were not in breach of their equitable duties: they had merely joined in arrest of the vessels and had done so in good faith; they had never taken possession of them, nor arranged their sale, indeed had no knowledge or control of the sale effected. The Lenders could not be expected to pay off all other creditors in order to move the Vessel elsewhere where better prices might be obtained, nor to seek recovery from the port authority.