>>>
Andrew Tettenborn >>>
Today,
a nice decision of Christopher Clarke J on Hadley v Baxendale
(and in a very traditional context too).
In
a nutshell, a ship charterer redelivers 9 days late. Knowing the
owners' bind, a subsequent charterer who's agreed earlier at the
time of a price spike to take the ship for 6 months at a princely
rate agrees not to cancel (which it could), but instead screws the
owners down by $8000 per day.
Owners
claim comfortably over $1 million, i.e. $8000 per day lost for 6
months or so. Charterers contend for comparative chickenfeed, i.e.
the difference between the 2 charter rates for 9 days.
Despite
a common belief that in charter cases you can't get damages based
on actual subsequent fixtures, a majority of the arbitrators side
with the owners. So does Clarke J. Once you find that loss of the
subsequent fixture was not unlikely, that settles the matter &
it comes under the first limb of Hadley. The fact that
the charterers didn't know of the fixture and hadn't shown an intent
to take the risk was irrelevant.
In
addition, decent discussion of Slater v Hoyle / Bence
v Fasson; the difference between mitigation and remoteness;
and a number of other issues of principle.
See
Transfield Shipping Inc of Panama v Mercator Shipping Inc of
Monrovia [2006] EWHC 3030 (Comm) (1 December 2006)
