Where the terms of a statute are incorporated into a contract by reference, the contract has to be read as if the words of the statute are written out in the contract and construed, as a matter of contract, in that contractual context. The Hague Rules applied to ballast voyages: ‘My Lords, it is, I think permissible in a consideration of this commercial transaction to ask what possible difference it makes to the charterers whether the delay, to which their loss is due, occurs when the ship is in ballast or is loaded with a cargo of oil or of water. It matters not for this purpose whether the charterparty was for a single voyage, as the original document seemed to contemplate, or for a number of consecutive voyages. The contractual subject-matter was the whole period during which the vessel was under charter, and it is, in my opinion, to this whole period that the parties agreed that the statutory standard of obligation and immunity should relate.’
Judges:
Viscount Simonds
Citations:
[1959] AC 133
Cited by:
Cited – Parsons Corporation and others v C V Scheepvaartonderneming ‘The Happy Ranger’ CA 17-May-2002
There was a contact for the carriage by sea of three reactors. The contract applied the Hage-Visby rules.
Held: The contract applied the rules as they would apply in the country of shipment if they were applied mandatorily. The contact should . .
Cited – Farstad Supply As v Enviroco Ltd SC 6-Apr-2011
The court was asked by the parties to a charterparty whether one of them is an ‘Affiliate’ of the charterer for the purposes of provisions in a charterparty by which both the owner and the charterer agreed to indemnify and hold each other harmless . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Transport
Updated: 12 May 2022; Ref: scu.179852