Deadfreight
Freight payable on cargo the charterer contracted to ship but did not: how it is calculated and the defenses usually raised.
Deadfreight is the sum payable to an owner where the charterer ships less than the quantity it contracted to ship. It compensates the owner for the freight it would have earned on the missing cargo, rather than being a penalty for short loading.
The claim is normally framed as damages for breach of the obligation to furnish a full and complete cargo, so the owner must give credit for expenses saved on the cargo not carried, and the usual measure is the lost freight less those savings. Recurrent defenses are that the shortfall fell within an agreed margin, that the owner’s own presentation of the ship limited the intake, and that the charterer was prevented from loading by an excepted cause.
The full article will cover the source of the obligation in the standard forms, the calculation and the credit for saved expenses, margins and the more or less in owner’s option provision, the relationship with the cargo quantity stated in the bill of lading, and the interaction with laytime where short loading also saves time.