The Captain Stefanos [2012]: capture and seizure as express off-hire
Cooke J's decision that a rider clause listing 'capture/seizure' put a vessel off hire for the duration of a Somali piracy hijacking.
Osmium Shipping Corp v Cargill International SA (The Captain Stefanos) [2012] EWHC 571 (Comm) was decided by Cooke J on 13 March 2012. The vessel was hijacked by Somali pirates on about 21 September 2008 and released on about 6 December 2008 after payment of a ransom, while on an amended NYPE 1946 time charter whose rider clause 56 added ‘capture/seizure, or detention or threatened detention by any authority including arrest’ to the off-hire events.
Cooke J held that ‘capture/seizure’ was a free-standing off-hire event, not qualified by the words ‘by any authority’ that followed, so the vessel was off hire for the period of the hijacking. The result is the mirror image of The Saldanha, where the same kind of seizure under the unamended words left the vessel on hire.
The full article will cover the facts, the construction argument, the drafting lesson for riders, and the NYPE 2015 Clause 39 piracy regime that codifies a 90-day on-hire period followed by cessation of hire.