“The Supreme Court held that the No Oral Modification (NOM) provision in a contract for occupation of office premises deprived a subsequent alleged oral agreement of any binding force as a contract variation. Parties who orally agree to the terms of a variation of the substance of their contractual relationship do not thereby impliedly agree to dispense with the NOM clause.”

“Following salvage assistance to a Vessel suffering engine shut-downs near navigation channels, the LOF arbitrator based his award on a danger posed by temporary immobilisation but declined to find a collision risk danger. The appeal arbitrator accepted such a danger, increasing the salvor's remuneration. Owners raised a 'serious irregularity' challenge, saying that this particular danger (collision offshore instead of on channel passage) was neither pleaded nor argued but merely raised in discussion by the appeal arbitrator. The Court dismissed the challenge, refusing to find unfairness (Owners had the opportunity to address the point) or that any irregularity was 'serious' (given that salvage arbitration is informal in nature and the arbitrators are expected to use their own knowledge and experience) or that there had been substantial injustice (as a significantly different outcome was unlikely to have resulted from Owners addressing the new point).”

“The Court allowed an appeal from an arbitration award which had held that shipowners were unable to recover from charterers in respect of liability to those interested in a cargo of direct reduced iron. Clause 49 of the c/p on the NYPE 46 form stated "the Stevedores... to remain under the direction of the Master who will be responsible for proper stowage and seaworthiness and safety of the vessel". The Court held that such a partial transfer of responsibility to the shipowners for some aspects of cargo handling is not sufficient for there to be considered a "similar amendment" for the purposes of Clause 8(b) of the ICA.”

“The 28 day period for challenging an Arbitration Award was held to run from the date of the Award and not from the date of a Memorandum (requested 12 days, and issued 27 days after the Award) under s57(3)(a) of the Arbitration Act, correcting what the Court termed "classic clerical and typographical errors". The corrections were unconnected with and not material to the grounds of appeal and the Court held that the appeal was out of time and declined to exercise its discretion to grant a retrospective extension.”

“The Court of Appeal reaffirmed that "unit" in Article IV rule 5 of the Hague Visby Rules means a physical item and that "enumeration... as packed" means no more than specification in words or figures of the number of packages. Therefore, the first instance judge correctly concluded that the specification on the bills (in this case, waybills) was such that identified individual frozen tuna loins as the relevant units.”

“The sellers of a road salt cargo claimed that the buyers were in repudiatory breach of the sale contract for not providing the letter of credit on time. The Tribunal found that the provision of a letter of credit was to be read as an innominate term and not a condition as the failure to provide it would have not deprived the sellers of the whole benefit of the contract, i.e. the sale of salt and the expected profit.”