Southeaster Maritime Ltd v Trafigura Maritime Logistics Pte Ltd (The MV Aquafreedom) - [2024] EWHC 255 (Comm), King's Bench Division, Commercial Court (Mr Justice Jacobs) - 8 February 2024

Charterparty (time) - Whether fixture had come into agreement - Recap - Negotiations - Terms subject - Charterers' management approval subject - Counter offer - Withdrawal of offer - Estoppel

The claimant was the owner of the vessel Aquafreedom, an oil tanker. In late January and early February 2023 the parties conducted negotiations through brokers Arrow Tankers for a time charter of the vessel. The negotiations were in four phases: negotiations culminating in a recap circulated on 30 January 2023; a sequence of exchanges ending with proposals made by Trafigura by emails at 17.09 on 1 February 2023 and 06.41 on 2 February 2023; a hiatus of four days during which the owners failed to respond to Trafigura's proposals; and communications in the morning of 6 February following the owners' cancellation of a Teams call scheduled for 10.00 that morning.