Owners of the MT ‘Tigr’ and Anr v Transnet Ltd and Anr 1998 (3) SALR 861 (Supreme Court of Appeal)(Hefer, Nienaber, Marais, Schutz and Scott JJA) - 27 May 1998

Admiralty jurisdiction - Defendant to action in personam attaching vessel and bunkers in order to found jurisdiction against third parties - Whether requirement of prima facie cause of action to justify attachment involved defendant having to adduce evidence that it was liable to plaintiff

On 26 June 1996 the barge Bos 400 ran aground and was wrecked near Cape Town. At the time she was being towed by the tug Tigr . The barge was owned by a French company (‘Bouygues’). The owner of the Tigr (‘Caspian’) was an Azerbaijani company. At the time of the incident the Tigr had been time-chartered by a Bermudan company managed from Holland (‘Ultisol’).