Apart from the special forms of charter-party employed by the international oil companies for chartering vessels in the two senses, the “Exxonvoy 1969” has replaced the old “London Form”. Even the Russians, who clung to the “London Form”, seem to have adopted the “Exxonvoy 1969”. (Exxon itself employs for its own chartering the “STB Voy” which is an improved version of the “Exxonvoy 1969”.)

It is not often that the interpretation of the “Exxonvoy 1969” is raised before the courts, which suggests that both parties generally interpret it in the same way.

However, towards the end of 1978 the interpretation of the last sentence of cl. 6 and the meaning to be given to the expression “used laytime” as opposed to “time used for loading and discharging” was raised before the court. Unfortunately the draftsmen had not been consistent and had also used the expression “laytime”. The court therefore decided that “used laytime” was not a “term of art”. (The Tsukuba Maru [1979] 1 Lloyd’s Rep. 459.) Had the vessel not been on demurrage on her arrival, the very long period during which the bad weather prevented the vessel from mooring would not have counted for laytime, in virtue of the last sentence of cl. 6:

Recently, this form of charter-party was again before the court (the constitution of which was the same as for The Tsukuba Maru) this time for the interpretation of the first part of cl. 9:

The Laura Prima (case not yet reported) arrived but could not berth owing to port congestion and had to wait for a berth to become free. The owners claimed demurrage but the charterers asserted that, as the congestion was a reason of delay outside their control, the time so lost did not count for laytime in virtue of cl. 6. In reply, the owners asserted that cl. 9 placed on the charterers a contractual obligation to provide a berth for their vessel “reachable on her arrival”.

To this the charterers replied that the punctuation in cl. 9 was such that “reachable