WESTBROOK RESOURCES LTD V GLOBE METALLURGICAL INC

[2007] EWHC 2353, QBD (Comm), Tomlinson J, 16 October 2007

Contracts – Sale of goods – Repudiation – Damages

Westbrook were the sellers under a contract of sale FOB of a quantity of manganese ore. Globe Metallurgical were the buyers. Each argued before the court that the other had repudiated the contract, claiming damages. The judge held that it was the buyers who had repudiated the contract by not accepting material tendered which was less than half an inch in size. The loss directly and naturally resulting from Globe’s breach of contract was the difference between the price payable by Globe and that payable by the buyers to whom the goods were instead sold. The seller’s decisions that were subsequent to the breach of contract and their manner of their ultimate disposal of the goods were not matters which resulted directly and naturally from Globe’s breach of contract. As to the meaning of “approximately” (30,000 tonnes), the judge distinguished Paula Lee v Zehil [1983] 2 All ER 390. While in that case, the defendants had a number of options on how to perform the contract, here it was likely to depend on the circumstances precisely how the contract was performed.