Campbell Johnston Clark has played a pivotal role in several high-profile judgments in 2024 in the English High Court, the Supreme Court, the Admiralty Court and the Hong Kong Court, including decisive reported cases on matters of jurisdiction, shipping principles, collisions, total losses and important issues of marine insurance.  

In this issue of CJC Currents, we focus on a case involving liability on letters of indemnity, and CJC’s successful application for TPT Forests Ltd under Part 11 setting aside the Claimants’ claim on the basis that TPT Forests were not a party to the LOIs, in Yangtze Navigation (Asia) Co Ltd & others v TPT Shipping Ltd & Others (the ‘Xing Zhi Hai’) [2024] EWHC 2371 (Comm). 

Also featured is The English High Court ruling reaffirming the validity of the pay to be paid rule in the context of marine insurance, rejecting an attempt to distinguish between mutual P&I and fixed premium policies. CJC acted for the successful underwriters in MS AMLIN v King Trader and others [2024] EWHC 1813 (Comm).

Another significant judgment was handed down by High Court in October, in Stournaras Stylianos Monoproposi EPE (as claimant) vs. Maersk A/S (Defendant) [2024] EWHC 2494 (Comm), where CJC instructed Quadrant Chambers for the successful Defendant.

The Claimant incurred significant losses as a result of being defrauded by the seller under its sales contract to ship a consignment of copper from Dubai to Greece. Instead of copper, 22 containers had been stuffed with worthless cement bricks. The Claimant sought to recover its losses from Maersk. In his judgment, Lionel Persey KC found in favour of Maersk and dismissed the Claimant’s claims in their entirety on the grounds, inter alia, that there was no evidence that Maersk had any reason to consider at the time of the shipment that the shippers would provide fraudulent data to them and therefore Maersk was under no duty to compare the shipper-declared weights with the VGM-verified weights. 

Earlier this year, teams from CJC were also successful in actions over anti-suit injunctions. One, a rare anti-anti arbitration was the focus in Euronav Shipping NV v Black Swan Petroleum DMCC [2024] EWHC 896 (Comm) , in resisting an application made in the High Court by Euronav Shipping. In the case of The London Steam-Ship Owners' Mutual Insurance Association Limited v. Trico Maritime (PVT) Ltd & Ors, which concerned Xpress Pearl, CJC, together with Quadrant barristers, acted for the Club as successful claimant.

CJC was also instructed in a significant Supreme Court hearing in RTI Ltd (Respondent) v MUR Shipping BV (Appellant) UKSC 2022/0172, which  focused on the construction of force majeure clauses, and the content of the obligation on a party to use ‘reasonable endeavours’ to avoid the effects of the force majeure event. CJC is currently awaiting the decision in another Supreme Court case.

Finally, having obtained a freezing order from the High Court in Civiello and another v Brodahl in 2023, CJC also acted for the applicant in a follow-up “pockets-wallets” application in the High Court in Thomas Anthony Civiello & Anor v Erik Brodahl [2024] EWHC 707 (Comm).

In the meantime, CJC’s transaction team continues along its impressive growth path, through additions to its expertise and in high profile work which included its role in advising Cadeler A/S on the Marshall Islands elements of the merger which created the largest, most diversified and modern fleet of T&I wind turbine vessels in the industry. CJC’s transactional team was instrumental in the successful completion of the deal, which was recognised as a Marine Money Deal of the Year.

At CJC, we are proud to be trusted by our clients to take on the largest, most complex and important cases and guide them through the litigation process or transaction as the case may be.