In the November 1985 issue of this Quarterly,1 Mr P. G. Naschitz reviewed the case of Wright v. Maman Cargo Terminals Ltd.2 The case concerned the loss of a shipment of gold jewellery for refining. The shipment was brought to Maman Air Cargo Terminal in Tel-Aviv Airport and was scheduled to be flown the following day by Swissair to Switzerland. The shipment disappeared at some point after it had been unloaded at Maman. It never boarded the aircraft. Maman was sued by the underwriters who insured the shipment by virtue of subrogation. Maman’s contention as to liability was that it acted as an agent of the air carrier, thus it was limited by the limit of the Warsaw Convention. The contention was rejected and the underwriters were awarded the full sum of their claim.

It is suggested that Mr Naschitz’s conclusions need qualification. First, it has to be borne in mind that the present judgment was handed down by the Tel Aviv District Court and an appeal has subsequently been filed which is now pending before the Supreme Court of Israel in Jerusalem. One should, then, with all due respect, limit this case’s precedential value.

Secondly, recent years have seen increased litigation in Israel with respect to the Warsaw Convention.3 In this litigation the Supreme Court of Israel has followed the extensive case law of the United States and Europe. In Dadon v. Air France 4 the court stressed the need for a unified global interpretation of the Warsaw Convention. This line of thought had been previously adopted both in the United Kingdom5 and in the U.S.6 It can be assumed, then, that when Maman’s appeal is argued before the Supreme Court substantial weight will be given to foreign case law, where support for Maman’s argument, it is believed, exists.

Thirdly, Maman’s argument in the District Court was not centred around its being a mere warehouseman. Maman performs a lot more duties than that of a warehouseman—it is the body which takes care of almost all ground handling activities for both export and import cargoes. Maman tried to show in this case that, following the ratio decidendi of Reed v. Wiser 7 and Julius Young v. Delta,8 since it performed “Services in furtherance of the contract of carriage and in place of the carriers themselves”,9 it had to be regarded as an agent of the air carrier, thus limited by the same limit of liability under Art. 25A of the Warsaw Convention. To present Maman’s contention as merely using Himalaya Clause contractual defence would be too narrow a comprehension of Maman’s argument.