The Stella Nova - Q.B.D. (Adm. Ct.) (Sheen J.) - 17 July 1981

Plaintiffs’ claim for unsatisfied judgment - Whether plaintiffs entitled to invoke Admiralty jurisdiction to proceed in rem

The first plaintiffs were a Norwegian partnership which, in March 1978, sold their vessel the Stella Nova to the defendants. It was a condition of the sale agreement that the defendants would employ the second plaintiffs as manager and that the second plaintiffs would be solely entitled to enter into charterparties for the vessel. In breach of this agreement the defendants subsequently purported to charter the Stella Nova to BP Ltd. The plaintiffs issued a writ out of the Q.B.D. seeking an injunction to restrain the defendants from chartering the vessel to BP. That action was settled on 21 November 1979 on terms which provided that all disputes should be referred to arbitration in Bergen.