Evergreen Marine has won a striking legal victory to overturn a liability ruling in the UK's first-ever Supreme Court collision ruling.
The Taiwanese operator had previously been found 80% responsible for an incident involving its 7,024-teu boxship Ever Smart (built 2006) and the 153,000-dwt tanker Alexandra 1 (built 1997) off Jebel Ali in 2015.
The ruling means the Admiralty Court will have to reapportion the blame for the clash.
The judgment also reinforces the primacy of the "crossing rules" in the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea 1972 — viewed as the principle rules of conduct in navigation.
Evergreen was appealing a 2020 ruling in the Court of Appeal that backed up the Admiralty Court's original 80%/20% liability split.
The Ever Smart suffered $4m in damage. The Nautical Challenge-owned suezmax, whose bow was split to beneath the waterline and whose condensate cargo had to be transshipped before a repair could be carried out, registered damages of more than $32m.
Which rules take precedence?
The case hinged on whether narrow channel rules overrode crossing rules.
The Alexandra 1 was approaching a narrow channel intending to enter into it, while the Ever Smart was navigating the channel intending to exit it.
If crossing rules applied, the tanker would have been the give-way vessel and the Ever Smart the stand-on vessel, obliged to maintain its course and speed.
Evergreen's team of barristers at Quadrant Chambers had asked last year how the Ever Smart could be required to both maintain its course under the crossing rules while simultaneously altering its course to starboard under the narrow channel rule.
The Supreme Court found that the crossing rules did indeed apply and that the tanker was obliged to take early and substantial action to keep well clear of the Ever Smart.
The panel of judges said "narrow channel" rules cannot apply merely because the approaching tanker was intending and preparing to enter the channel.
The crossing rules are only overridden if and when the approaching vessel is shaping to enter, adjusting its course so as to reach the entrance on her starboard side of it, on a final approach, the judgment said.
Evergreen's law firm Stann Law said the decision emphasised the "importance of good old-fashioned principles of navigation by observation".
Clear answer given
"The judgment provides a very clear answer to an elementary question of navigation and provides clarity to seafarers that consistent application of the crossing rules is important to preventing collisions at sea," lawyer Faz Peermohamed of Stann Law told TradeWinds.
"The navigation of large merchant ships is literally a matter of life and death, and as such clarity is of vital importance."
Peermohamed, himself a former master, said the judgment should be welcome reading for bridge teams across the world.
Liability limited
In February 2020, the UK Admiralty Court limited Evergreen’s liability for the collision to $9.5m, against a claim by Nautical Challenge of $40m.
Nautical Challenge applied to appeal this decision to the court of appeal.
An initial report by UK accident investigators found multiple factors caused the collision. The tanker was waiting "too near the channel entrance", and the containership did not keep a proper lookout.
The Admiralty Court ruling said a major issue to consider in assessing the damages recoverable by the Alexandra 1 was the asserted “impecuniosity” — lack of money — of its owner.
The tanker was sold in 2017 at judicial auction, having been arrested in Singapore for non-payment of crew wages.
