| Award 1176

Award N° 1176 – Second degree : Contract of Affreightment (COA) – Shipowner’s partial fulfilment – Protective seizure in New-York (Rule B) – Interest of a subsidiary company to take action (Yes) – Estoppel (No) – Damage for substitute chartered vessel (Yes). A subsidiary of a shipping group of companies has a right to bring an action because losses linked with a substitute vessel of a COA concluded by its mother company are registered in its accounts and French case law allows to establish the existence of an economic entity even if a legal entity is not available. The shipowner having refused to nominate a vessel without valid reason will bear the costs of charterer’s losses for substitute chartered vessel – Shipowner’s counterclaim for his loss of earnings because of charterer’s refusal of a nominated vessel for another voyage is rejected because it was a voluntary and purely commercial decision to put the vessel on the T/C market.