Progress Bulk Carriers Ltd v Tube City IMS LLC (The “Cenk Kaptanoglu”) – QBD (Com Ct)(Cooke J) – 17 February 2012

Charterparty – Duress – Owners repudiating voyage charterparty by chartering named vessel to different party – Charterers entering into settlement agreement with owners under protest to accept substitute vessel with different laycan and to waive all claims for loss and damage – Whether settlement agreement voidable for economic duress – Whether owners’ conduct amounted to illegitimate pressure

On 2 April 2009 Progress Bulk Carriers, as owners, concluded a charter of the vessel Cenk Kaptanoglu (“ Cenk K”) to Tube City, as charterers, for carriage, on that named vessel, of a cargo of shredded scrap from the Mississippi River to China. The charter did not give any right to substitute the vessel. The agreed laycan was 15-21 April 2009. The identity of the performing vessel was important to the charterers or, more particularly, to their receivers, whose approval was required by the terms of the charterers’ sale contract to them. That sale contract provided for a final shipment date of 30 April 2009.