Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly

Professor Francis D Rose

Document

30 YEARS BEFORE THE MAST

Sir Bernard Eder *

This paper examines the key maritime issues of the last 30 years as dealt with by the courts in London in nearly 2,000 cases. They reveal that a broad range of work has engaged the work of the arbitrators and the English courts, with three issues to the fore: a shift of activity from the courts to arbitration; the growth in the use of freezing and ancillary disclosure orders; and a strong trend away from a literal approach to the construction of contracts to one which favours business commonsense and which permeates many other areas of the law. These approaches and procedures have combined to provide the shipping community with the necessary certainty to deal as effectively as possible with whatever the future may hold.

I would first like to thank the Directors of the Institute of Maritime Law in Southampton and of the Tulane Maritime Law Center, Tulane University, New Orleans for inviting me to speak on this occasion. Each institution has established its own worldwide reputation for research, learning and teaching in relation to shipping law and it is therefore a particular pleasure to have been invited to speak at this event to mark and to celebrate their long and fruitful collaboration over the last 30 years.

To speak briefly on the key maritime issues of the last three decades is not an easy task. However, a good starting point is some statistics.

A review of the law reports over the last 30 years shows that during that period the courts in London have delivered judgments in approximately 1750 cases involving shipping matters. Of those, approximately 1250 cases were at first instance, mainly in the Commercial or Admiralty Courts, 440 went to the Court of Appeal and some 62 cases were heard in our highest court, the House of Lords or, as it is now known, our Supreme Court. That is a very large number—on average perhaps 40 cases or so every year. I have produced a list of what I would suggest are some of the most interesting and important cases.1 I have generally chosen one a year and I will talk about some of them.

* A Justice of the High Court of England and Wales.

This is the lightly revised text of a Speech given in celebration of the thirtieth anniversaries of the Institute of Maritime Law, University of Southampton and the Tulane Maritime Law Center, delivered at the Club Shanghai, Shanghai on 21 October 2012.

1. 1981: The Chikuma [1981] 1 WLR 314;

1982: The Nema [1982] AC 724 (HL);

1983: The Salem [1983] 2 AC 375 (HL);

1983: The Niedersachsen [1983] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 600 (CA);

1984: The Antaois [1985] AC 191 (HL);

1985: The Popi M [1985] 1 WLR 948 (HL);

1986: The Aliakmon [1986] AC 785 (HL);

1987: The Kyzikos [1989] AC 1264 (HL);

1988: The Lips [1988] AC 395 (HL);

1989: The Dominique [1989] AC 1056 (HL);