Misdelivery of cargo—delivery outside the period of coverage of the Hague-Visby Rules—application of time bar in Hague-Visby Rules, Art.III(6)

The claimant was the pledgee of bills of lading issued in respect of various cargoes of coal that were shipped from Indonesian to Indian ports. The coal had been discharged against letters of indemnity into stockpiles and it was not clear what had happened to it. The claimant brought arbitration proceedings against the carrier. The carrier argued, successfully, that any claim was time-barred by application of Art.III(6) of the Hague-Visby Rules, the arbitration having commenced more than one year after delivery. The claimant successfully applied for permission to appeal on a point of law of general public importance. It argued before Sir William Blair that the Hague-Visby Rules applied only to the carriage operation itself and that nothing in the Rules referred to delivery of the cargo. It further argued that cl.2(c) of the bills of lading (which were on the Congenbill form), in excluding liability of the carrier prior to loading and after discharge, excluded the application of the Hague-Visby Rules so that the carrier was precluded from relying on the time bar. The carrier, on the other hand, contended that it was protected by the time bar which applied “in any event”, and therefore outside the period of responsibility under the Hague-Visby Rules. If that was wrong, the parties must be taken to have impliedly agreed that the Rules should continue to govern in the absence of a set of terms to apply outside the period of responsibility (the so-called “Carver implied term”).