4.2 The Dispute
The relevant dispute was first heard before Justice Teare of the UK Admiralty Court in early 2019. The Parties` claims, in broad terms, were as follows:
Cargo interest (the defendants) declined paying their contribution in GA on the basis that “the vessel was unseaworthy by reason of the fact that she had an inadequate passage plan, that that inadequacy was a cause of the casualty, and that due diligence was not exercised to make the vessel seaworthy. The casualty was thus caused by the Owners' actionable fault (a breach of Article III rule 1 of the Hague Rules) and so the cargo interests are not liable to contribute in GA pursuant to the York Antwerp Rule”(1)Alize 1954 and another v Allianz Elementar Versicherungs AG and others [2019] EWHC 481 (Admlty) (hereinafter: “Libra [2019]”, 4
Owners of the vessel (the claimants) argued that a vessel could not be deemed unseaworthy by reason of a defective passage plan.(2) Ibid, 76 Furthermore, they argued that the cause of grounding could be attributed to the master`s negligent navigation, effectively satisfying the so called, “error of navigation” exemption as set out Article IV r. 2 (a).(3) Ibid, 80 In any event, owners argued that due diligence had been exercised to make the vessel seaworthy, hence satisfying the provisions of the Hague Rules Article III r. 1.