Cargo claim time bars
The four distinct bars a cargo or charter claim can meet: Hague-Visby one year, the general limitation period, the Inter-Club bar, and the demurrage bar.
A cargo claim time bar is the period after which a claim can no longer be pursued. Charter party practice involves four distinct bars that run on different triggers and have different legal effects, and confusing them is a common and expensive error.
Article III rule 6 of the Hague-Visby Rules discharges the carrier from all liability unless suit is brought within one year of delivery or of the date when the goods should have been delivered, and it extinguishes the right rather than merely barring the remedy. Rule 6 bis allows a further period of not less than three months for an indemnity action. Separately there is the general limitation period, the Inter-Club Agreement’s own 24-month bar under its clause 6, extended to 36 months where the Hamburg Rules apply compulsorily, and the purely contractual demurrage bar.
The full article will cover each bar and what triggers it, extinction against procedural bar and why the distinction matters, time extensions and how they are agreed, the reach of the one-year bar to misdelivery after discharge following FIMBank plc v KCH Shipping Co Ltd [2024] UKSC 38, and the documentary conditions precedent that defeat demurrage claims.