When exactly does a contract of carriage effected by charter-party come into being? The shipbroker’s motto “My word is my bond” would seem to give a simple and lofty answer to that question but, when parties to a charter-party purport to enter a bond with some words left as yet unspoken, there is considerable difficulty in establishing the precise moment at which the contract comes into existence.

The issue has lately surfaced before the courts and in the literature because of the practice of arranging fixtures “subject details”, leaving the incidentals of an engagement to be discussed after the main terms of the charter-party have been agreed upon in a “recap telex”. Concern has been expressed in particular at difficulties caused by developments in the United States in connection with this practice2. The problem is essentially one of reconciling what is accepted, at any rate in some American decisions, as the legal significance of fixtures “subject details” with general contractual principles as commonly accepted in this country. The unease is well illustrated in the latest edition of Shipbroking and Chartering Practice. Talking of the fixture subject to details stage, the authors write: “Technically, the parties are now regarded as committed to the charter (even if a party formally may still have the right to ‘jump off’ during the following discussions regarding the details of the charter-party…)”3. Regrettably, the authors give no indication as to whether the technical or the formal position is the one which is the correct one at law.

Concern about the “subject details” problem reached the pages of this Quarterly recently in an article by Mr S. N. Ball4. That article takes as its starting point an obiter dictum by Staughton, J., in a case relating to the sale of a ship, The Solholt 5, in which there is a brief suggestion that no charter-party exists at the “subject details” stage. This dictum is taken as the sole statement representative of judicial interpretation of this shipping practice in this country, and is then contrasted with the view taken on the matter in four American cases. Although there may be problems with deriving a general test from these cases, Mr Ball concludes that it is both unlikely and undesirable that the American view be followed in the English courts, because this would disturb accepted principles relating to the formation of contracts, mainly the rules on intention to enter legal relations and the rules on implied terms. This article differs from Mr Ball’s in three major respects. First, our points of origin are different. The first part of this article makes heavier emphasis than does Mr Ball’s on the position in English law: the paper concentrates on two English charter-party decisions in which the “subject details” question arose for discussion in a far less peripheral manner than it did in The