2025 Maritime Digest of Arbitration Awards and Court Rulings
LAYCAN -- ACT OF GOD -- CONTRACT -- CARGO -- SHIPPING -- CIF PURCHASE CANCELLED DUE LATE LOAD -- VALIDITY OF ETA -- Buyer Award
Although arriving promptly on the first day of laycan, bad weather kept the vessel from berthing for two weeks. Subsequently, the Buyer cancelled the contract arguing: that the Seller failed to ship the cargo within the shipping period, that the seller failed in His/Her obligation to ship the cargo expediently, and that the disport ETA’s were unrealistic in the context of Winter weather.
ASBATANKVOY -- CHARTER PARTY -- LOADPORT -- TWO PORT LOAD -- ALL TANKS NOT READY AT FIRST PORT -- VALIDITY OF NOR -- Owner Award
Fulfilling an option granted by the Charter Party, the Charterer added a second loadport to the voyage. But when the Vessel tendered NOR at the first loadport, the NOR was rejected because the Vessel’s tanks to be loaded at the second loadport were unclean. The Charterers argued that the NOR cannot be valid if the Vessel is not ready to load cargo in all respects (including subsequent port loading).
ASBATANKVOY -- ARBITRATION -- CARGO -- BURDEN OF PROOF -- PREMATURE NOR -- DESPATCH -- CARGO LOSS -- SIMULTANEOUS CARGO HANDLING -- Owner Award
This arbitration dispute centers around the finer responsibilities of the Owner to load with "utmost dispatch" and to load concurrently in cases of more than one cargo. However, if the Charterer sustains a loss from delayed loading, the burden to prove any such loss lies on the Charterers.
ASBATANKVOY -- DEMURRAGE -- ARBITRATION -- PRORATE -- INCREASED DEMURRAGE INVOICE -- Owner Award
In order to collect outstanding demurrage claims, the Owner started arbitration; however, originally, the claim was erroneously calculated with a lower prorated waiting time which the Owner raised at arbitration. The Charterers argued that they were exempt from this new rate because they believed it to be punitive and an alteration of the original contract.
ASBATANKVOY -- LAYTIME -- CARGO -- CHARTER PARTY -- STOWAGE -- LAYCAN -- DEADFREIGHT -- WRONGFUL CANCELLATION -- Owner Award
During laytime, and after the Charterer’s cargo was partially loaded, the Charterer altered the agreed amount of cargo as specified by the Charter Party, thereby incurring stowage delays and confusion in the loading plan. After these delays extended loadtime past laycan, the Charterer cancelled the voyage and refused responsibility for the resulting deadfreight claiming that the delays resulted from the Vessel’s unreadiness to load.
ASBATANKVOY -- BARGE -- LOADPORT -- DEMURRAGE -- TERMINAL -- ARBITRATION -- ACT OF GOD -- DETENTION -- MITIGATE -- LATE CARGO -- BERTHING DELAY -- Owner Award
After an initial barge loading failure at the original loadport, the Owner mitigated the Charterer’s demurrage and fixed the new loadport as the Owner’s terminal. The Vessel tendered NOR at the terminal, but was forced to wait three days for the Charterer’s barges to arrive because of rough seas and lock delays. The subsequent demurrage claim for the three day delay was refuted in arbitration by the Charterers on the grounds that the weather and lock detentions were out of their control, and therefore exempt from demurrage.
Recently introduced, EXXONMOBILVOY 2005 (EMV2005) contains a slight reduction in requirements and a subtle change in semantics as compared to its predecessor, EXXONMOBILVOY 2000 (EMV2000). EMV2000, itself a limited update of EXXONVOY 90, was the product of the merger of Exxon and Mobil and published on 1 June 2000. The below provides a brief summary of the differences EMV2005’s laytime / demurrage clauses have as compared to EMV2000’s laytime / demurrage clauses.
ASBATANKVOY -- SHIP-TO-SHIP -- DEMURRAGE -- ARBITRATION -- LOADPORT -- STS TRANSFER – WHETHER NOR WAS TENDERED -- VALIDITY OF NOR -- Charterer Award
This case began with Charterer allegations that the Vessel did not tender NOR for this STS transfer—or if it did, it was invalid and premature. The Owner, however, counterclaimed that when the Charterer remitted partial payment of the demurrage claim, they thereby admitted validity to the Vessel’s NOR and sacrificed their right to challenge it.
GENCON -- BERTH -- DEMURRAGE -- LAYTIME -- ARBITRATION -- VESSEL DEFICIENCIES – VALIDITY OF NOR -- Owner Award
When the Charterer’s pilot boarded the Vessel to begin berthing six days after NOR declaration, the pilot noted operational deficiencies and refused to berth the Vessel until repaired. The Owner subsequently filed for demurrage beginning at NOR tender while the Charterer argued that NOR cannot be considered a valid beginning of laytime because of Vessel unreadiness at berthing.
GENCON 76 -- BERTH -- CANAL -- WEATHER -- ACT OF GOD -- LOADPORT -- DEMURRAGE -- DETENTION -- Owner Award
After loading was completed, a latent document delivery to the Vessel detained it at berth for an extra 14.5H. The Charterer did not contest His/Her fault in the delay, however, He/She argues that the canal was concurrently closed due to adverse weather for several days and the time spent at berth during this closure should be deducted from the claim.
