Under a T/C with maximum duration to mid-December 2019, Charterers redelivered late, in February 2020, with 165 MT HSFO (by then out-lawed by the IMO fuel regulations in force 1.1.20). Owners claimed in respect of post-redelivery time and cost of a trip to de-bunker, relying on cl. 10, which set out a sliding scale of permitted redelivery HSFO quantities to be endeavoured. The Tribunal dismissed Owners’ claims based on cl.10 (due to its non-mandatory nature) and on an implied term requiring zero ‘un-burnable’ ROB after 31.12.19 (as the situation was contemplated by neither party). However, ruling that rate differential was not the only measure of late-redelivery damages, the Tribunal held that cl.10 meant that de-bunkering was within the contemplation of the parties and resulting expenditure recoverable by Owners.

Mrs Philipp claimed against her bank, having fallen victim to an 'authorised push payment' ('APP') fraud, whereby she authorised payments totalling £700k to fraudsters' various international a/cs. The SC, restoring the 1st instance judgment, confirmed the bank's duty to carry out its customer's instructions with reasonable care and skill, disobeying them if reasonable grounds for believing fraudulent agency involved. Where, as here, the instructions came directly from the customer (a feature of APP fraud), the bank might have the right - but had no duty - to disobey such instructions.

Following an unpaid Judgment for damages for wrongful arrest of the vessel ‘Captain Silver’, the Claimants took enforcement steps, including an Asset Disclosure Order (ADO), which was disobeyed, resulting in a Contempt of Court ruling, a £100,000 fine on AGR (unpaid) and a 12-month Committal Order on its general manager, Mr AG. The latter applied to discharge the Committal Order on the grounds that whilst he was willing to comply with the ADO, he had no authority to do so because his co-signatories withheld consent. The Court declined: the Committal Order could not be discharged whilst the underlying Contempt remained and there were insufficient grounds to ‘purge’ the Contempt. Mr AG had failed to take adequate steps to obtain co-signatories’ support, and he could have at least partially complied with the ADO. Should he do so in future purging might be possible.

As part of a trade of shipping parcels of wheat from a Black Sea port to Turkey, Charterers engaged the subject Vessel. In repudiatory breach, Owners failed to perform the C/P. Charterers claimed (i) substitute vessel freight differential and (incongruously) (ii) storage charges for one less parcel shipped. Both claims were dismissed. The ‘substitute’ was in fact a vessel already chartered by and performing the trade for Charterers, having loaded and sailed before Owners’ repudiatory breach and before the subject Vessel would have arrived to load, so its freight rate was not reflective of a higher market rate at any material time. Storage charges, if ever incurred (this seemed unlikely as the ‘substitute’ - one of a stream of Charterers’ vessels - had carried the parcel) were equally irrecoverable as they pre-dated the repudiatory breach and could not have been caused by it.

Owners claimed a balance of T/C hire in an LMAA SCP arbitration. Charterers counterclaimed in respect of underperformance, but Owners argued that the counterclaim was not advanced within the mandatory time frame of Paragraph 5(g) of the SCP, obliging the Tribunal to shut it out. The Tribunal ruled that 5(g) was not a barring provision but nonetheless it could not adjudicate the counterclaim, as the T/C provided that in the event of a speed and consumption dispute, performance was to be analysed by “a mutually agreed weather routing company …whose findings will be final and binding” - which was absent. Owners were awarded their balance of hire claim (with some adjustments) and costs, but the Tribunal reserved jurisdiction to deal with Charterers’ counterclaim in the future, if advanced with a qualifying weather routing company analysis.

A T/C clause provided for underwater cleaning (necessitated by Charterers’ trading) to be done “at first workable opportunity and always at Charterers’ time and expense”. The Court on a s.69 appeal upheld the Tribunal’s ruling that post-redelivery cleaning time was reimbursable, and at the T/C rate (without Owners having to prove loss of time and damages suffered).