Lloyd's Shipping & Trade Law

In Société Générale SA v Saad Trading [2011] EWHC 2424 (Comm), the claimant bank Société Générale (‘SG’) claimed a sum of approximately US$50m against the applicant Saad Trading (‘D1’) pursuant to a facility letter, and the same sum against the guarantor Maan Abdulwahid Abduljmajeed Al-Sanea (‘D2’) in respect of a guarantee for D1’s liability.

Time charterparty – Guarantee – Repudiation – Damages

Sale of goods – GAFTA Form 120

Shipbuilding and sale – Sellers purporting to cancel – Injunctive relief

In a dramatic reversal of the judgment of Mr Justice Field at first instance (see National Shipping Co of Saudi Arabia v BP Oil Supply Co [2010] EWHC 3043 (Comm)), the Court of Appeal has held that a period counting as laytime or demurrage but which shipowners originally treated as a different category of claim could be considered a claim for demurrage – where all documents had been submitted in time, it was not defeated by the 90-day contractual time bar.