| Archives: October 2009

Award N°1166 – Gencon C-P – Period of time excluded from laytime – Ship’s agent contract. The C-P provides for time not to count on Saturday and Sunday : the common intention of the parties clearly is to exclude the week-end from laytime. Those two days will therefore not count as laytime in order to stick to what parties have freely agreed as well as to the custom of the port because in Algeria the week end runs on Thursday and Friday. The FIO clause of the C-P allocates risks and liabilities flowing from commercial operations entirely on charterers which have the task to get it organised and the ship’s agent, acting as representative of owners, cannot be held liable in this respect.

Award N°1167 – Carriage of bagged rice under bill of lading – Cargo loaded in winter in China bound to West Africa coast – Wet damages – Letter of guarantee giving jurisdiction to the CAMP. The sweat having caused the damage resulted from the difference of temperatures, it does not constitute an excepted case, because, to be exempted from liability, the fact that generates the situation must be unforeseeable and irresistible. The liability of the carrier had to be diminished because the risk was known to all those involved in the venture ; cargo interests being professional rice traders actually knew the risk taken by a chilled cargo loaded for a tropical country.