Note:

During 2017 there was a wide variety of cases touching on marine insurance and general average which are reported below. Many of them have significance in related areas of law, such as carriage of goods by sea, conflicts of law and insurance law generally. For example, The Ocean Victory is both a safe port and co-insurance/subrogation dispute. There are also cases which, though not on the interpretation of a marine insurance contract, may be of importance to marine insurance practice, such as The Lady M,1 which provides a judicial analysis of “barratry” on the basis of the Hague-Visby rules. Wherever possible, cross-references have been provided to the analysis in the neighbouring discipline to avoid unnecessary duplication.

Fraudulent claim—hull & machinery insurance—recovery of proceeds—settlement agreement—jurisdiction

This litigation is the successor to the limitation action dispute during which the cargo interests were able to establish that the vessel was scuttled at the instigation of the owner of the vessel, and so defeat the normal limits on compensation.3 In these preliminary proceedings, the Hull & Machinery underwriter, which had indemnified the insured owners by way of payments to the insured and its bank, sought to commence proceedings to recover the US$22m paid for the total loss of the vessel. These submissions focused on the terms of the policy and the settlement agreement insofar as they affected the jurisdiction of the UK courts to hear the dispute. The bank, which was domiciled in The Netherlands, insisted that any action could only be brought in those courts, by application of the Brussels Regulations.4