Commercial Court Clarifies The Nature Of Charterparty Liens

Western Bulk Shipowning III A/S v. Carbofer Maritime Trading ApS & others (The Western Moscow) [2012] EWHC 1224

In the May 2009 edition of our Shipping E-Brief, we wrote about the issue of charterparty liens and arbitrations (see http://incelaw.com/ourknowledge/publications/charterparty-liens-and-arbitration). In that article, we discussed the different approaches taken in previous cases when analysing the legal basis of a lien on sub-freight and/or sub-hire. In The Western Moscow, Mr Justice Clarke has looked in detail at the issue and has given a clear view on the nature of such liens.

The background facts

The Western Moscowwas the subject of a long charterparty chain which included the claimant as owner and the three defendants, CMT, OceanTask and SeaTask, as charterer, sub-charterer and sub-sub-charterer respectively. The owner terminated its charterparty with CMT due to the non-payment of hire and exercised a lien on sub-hire. CMT gave notice that it was exercising its lien to OceanTask and...