The assured (Sizer Metals Pte) insured nine shipments of tin concentrate to be carried from a mining facility in Rwanda to Penang with the insurer (Chubb Insurance Singapore Ltd) under the Institute Cargo Clauses A (1982), which is subject to English law and practice. The policy included the transit clause, which provided:

On arrival between July and September, four of the shipments were found to contain iron oxide and not tin concentrate. It was evident that there had been a theft either at the mining facility in Rwanda or in the subsequent transit by road to a bonded warehouse in Kigali before the cargo was transported to the port of Dar es Salaam for shipping to Penang. It was the contention of the assured (Sizer) that the theft had occurred after the consignments had left the mining facility in Rwanda and during transit at some point before they reached Dar es Salaam. The insurer (Chubb), on the other hand, argued that the theft had occurred at the mining facility in Rwanda and thus before the transit had commenced, hence there was no cover for the loss under the transit clause.

It was common ground at the trial that the burden of proof in showing that the loss occurred during the transit period was on the assured and the trial judge ruled that the assured had satisfied that burden. The trial judge based his decision on several grounds: 
(i) that tight security was in place at the mining facility posing significant logistical difficulties in carrying out the theft there; (ii) there was no evidence that the investigation for the official report issued by Rwanda National Public Prosecution Authority concluding that the thefts had not occurred in Rwanda was not properly conducted. With theft at source eliminated as improbable, the only remaining possibility was that the loss had occurred in transit. Therefore, the trial judge found that the thefts had taken place at some