Previous losses, rumours, suspicions and the duty of disclosure in marine contracts

The massive judgment of Colman J in Strive Shipping Corporation v Hellenic Mutual War Risks Association, The Grecia Express, 25 March 2002, [2002] EWHC 203 (Comm) – it runs to some 512 paragraphs – addresses a series of issues concerning the scope of the duty of utmost good faith in marine cases. This article focuses on perhaps the crucial issue in the judgment, the extent of the assured’s duty to disclose previous losses of vessels with which he had been involved. The judgment also touches upon a number of other important issues, including waiver of disclosure, the significance of overvaluation of the insured vessel, the burden of proof in fraud cases, the meaning of the commonly used phrase ‘persons acting maliciously’ as an insured or excluded peril, the scope of the duty to sue and labour and the weighing of evidence where deliberate scuttling is alleged by the insurers. These matters are, for reasons of space, omitted from the present discussion of The Grecia Express.