Brilliance in the details – Commercial Court clarifies Hague Visby provisions24 September 2025

The English Commercial Court recently delivered an enlightening ruling that resulted from the hearing of two appeals brought under section 69 of the Arbitration Act 1996. The court’s judgment in The Taikoo Brilliance [2025] EWHC 1878 (Comm) provides valuable guidance on two points of general importance in relation to the Rules.

Background 

Pedregal Maritime SA, the owners of the Taikoo Brilliance (the “Owners”), issued to Batavia Eximp & Contracting (S) Pte Ltd (the “Holders”) four bills of lading for a cargo of timber, which was carried from New Zealand to Kandla, India. Two of these bills referred to some of the timber being carried on deck, by specifying the number of pieces carried. Following arrival at Kandla, discharge took place in September 2019 without the bills of lading being produced.

The Holders alleged misdelivery by the Owners but did not commence arbitration proceedings until December 2020 – over a year after the alleged misdelivery. Prior to commencing arbitration proceedings, however, the Holders had issued a writ to arrest a sister ship before the High Court of Singapore.

The arbitration hearing commenced on 18 May 2022 and the Owners’ argument that the Holders’ claim was time-barred was rejected in relation to cargo carried on deck. The arbitration award was issued on 16 February 2023 and in June permission to appeal was granted on numerous points.

The Questions for the Court

Following the decision in The Giant Ace [2024] UKSC 38 that resolved some of the questions of law in this case, the two remaining questions of law for the Commercial Court were as follows:

1. did the Singapore arrest proceedings constitute a “suit” for the purposes of the one-year time bar under Article III, 6 of the Rules?; and
2. what is required by the words “which by the contract of carriage is stated as being carried on deck” in the definition of “Goods” at Article I(c)?

The First Question

The court accepted the Owners’ position that the Singapore arrest proceedings, being proceedings for security rather than proceedings to establish liability, were not a “suit” capable of stopping the clock on the one-year time bar under Article III, 6 of the Rules.

In reaching this decision, Robin Knowles J adopted a purposive and commercial approach to interpreting Article III, 6. He held that proceedings for security are not within the ordinary meaning of “suit” given the object and purpose of the provision, which was to “achieve finality and to enable accounts and books to be closed” (as confirmed by Lord Hamblen in The Giant Ace).

The court commented that the Holders’ analysis, which argued for the extension of “suit” to proceedings for security, would be uncommercial in leading to a scenario in which the Owners would be required to leave their books open indefinitely and without the certainty of substantive proceedings being brought.

The Second Question

As mentioned, two of the four bills of lading stated the quantities of cargo being carried on deck but did not specify the exact parcels being carried. Owners argued that the bills had to identify the latter as well as the former to be covered by the exception to the Rules.

Robin Knowles J agreed with the Owners that the purpose of Article I(c) is to allow a holder of a bill to identify whether the goods carried fall within the Rules. However, this purpose does not necessitate a single approach to drafting a bill of lading – which may instead depend on the nature of the cargo and the circumstances of carriage while taking a pragmatic, practical and commercial approach.