Associated ship arrest—procedural requirements for summons and determination of when a claim arose for purposes of association

In 2007, the appellant, Galsworthy Ltd (“Galsworthy”) and Parakou Shipping PTE Ltd (“Parakou”) concluded a time charterparty for the hire of the Jin Kang with delivery due to take place at Singapore in 2009. Parakou refused to take delivery of the vessel when tendered and Galsworthy obtained two London arbitration awards for damages arising from this repudiation of the charterparty.

In 2016, Galsworthy attempted to enforce payment of the arbitration awards by way of an action in rem against the Pretty Scene as an associated ship in relation to the Jin Kang. The first respondent, Pretty Scene Shipping SA (“Pretty Scene”), the owner of the Pretty Scene, applied to set the arrest aside on the basis that the writ of summons in rem and the warrant of arrest did not comply with the provisions of the Admiralty Rules2 and Practice Directive 27 of the KwaZulu-Natal High Court, in that it failed to contain sufficient particulars to enable the defendant to identify the facts and contentions upon which the claim was based, especially in relation to the claim that the Pretty Scene was an associated ship to the Jin Kang.

Following that hearing, and expecting an unfavourable judgment, Galsworthy caused a second warrant of arrest and summons in rem to be issued against the Pretty Scene. This was done ex parte, without any notification to Pretty Scene and without any notification to the court seised with the first arrest. The first arrest was set aside.3 On becoming aware of the second arrest, Pretty Scene brought an application to set aside the second arrest and sought security in respect of a counter application for damages for wrongful arrest. A differently constituted court dismissed the applications by Pretty Scene, upheld the arrest and granted the application for security.4 In both matters leave to appeal was sought by the relevant party but dismissed. However, following petition, leave to appeal was granted to the Full Court in respect of both matters. The two appeals were consolidated for hearing before the Full Court, which effectively set aside both arrests and an application