On 5 January 2015, owners chartered the Pacific Voyager to charterers on the Shellvoy 5 form, for carriage from Rotterdam to the Far East ("the Rotterdam CP"). The Rotterdam CP did not give any ETA at load port, nor any date of expected readiness to load. It did contain a laycan with a cancelling date of 4 February 2015.

On the date when the Rotterdam CP was entered into, the vessel was carrying cargo under a previous CP under which she was to part discharge, transit the Suez Canal, then load part cargo for discharge at Antifer, Le Havre ("the Antifer CP").

The Rotterdam CP included under the heading "Position/Readiness" the following details of the anticipated timetable for completion of the Antifer CP voyage:

"POSITION: ETA SUKHNA 9 JAN, 2015 (PART DISCHARGE)

ETA SUEZ CANAL 10 JAN, 2015 (TRANSIT)

ETA SIDI KERIR 12 JAN, 2015 (RE-LOADING)

ETA ANTIFER 25 JAN, 2015 (DISCHARGING)

ALL ABOVE BSS IAGW / WP"

On 12 January 2015, the vessel suffered a casualty in the Suez Canal, and had to be drydocked for repairs which would take months. Charterers terminated the Rotterdam CP on 6 February 2015 under the cancelling clause.

Charterers sued for damages. They argued that owners were in breach of an absolute obligation to commence the approach voyage to Rotterdam by the cancelling date.

Held (Popplewell J):

  1. Owners were liable (although for slightly different reasons than those submitted by charterers):

    1.1 There was an absolute obligation on the owners to commence the approach voyage to Rotterdam by a particular point of time.

    1.2 That time was to be a reasonable time, and was determined in the light of the other Rotterdam CP terms.

    1.3 In the Rotterdam CP the owners gave intermediate port estimates which involved the vessel arriving at Antifer on 25 January 2015 for final discharge under the Antifer CP. At Antifer the vessel would take a reasonable time to discharge.

    1.4 Accordingly, under the Rotterdam CP the owners were under an absolute obligation to commence the approach voyage to Rotterdam at the end of a reasonable discharging period if the vessel were to arrive for final discharge at Antifer on 25 January 2015. Owners were in breach of that obligation.

       
  2. The Judge also stated (obiter) that had there been no ETAs for the intermediate port arrivals under the Antifer CP he would have held that there was an absolute obligation under the Rotterdam CP to commence the approach voyage by a date when it was reasonably certain that the vessel would arrive at the loading port by the cancelling date.

(CSSA Chartering and Shipping Services S.A. v Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd [2017] EWHC 2579 (Comm))

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