The UK high court has rejected an appeal by a reefer owner against a damages award arising from a shipment of rotten bananas.
Sevylor Shipping and Trading of Panama wanted compensation to cargo receiver Altfadul and insurer Siat reduced.
The case arose from an arbitration award in 2017 involving the 12,200-gt Baltic Strait (built 1981), which has since been scrapped.
Bills of lading were signed on 4 January 2014 by which the master of the reefer acknowledged shipment at Guayaquil, Ecuador, in apparent good order and condition of 249,250 boxes of fresh bananas for carriage to and discharge in Libya.
The fruit deteriorated en route and arbitrators found Sevylor liable under the terms of the bills of lading for the damage, which was valued at $4.56m.
These two points were not challenged in the appeal.
The seller, CoMaCo, was also the voyage charterer of the vessel.
It later agreed a credit of $2.58m in favour of Altfadul, to be spread over three subsequent shipments.
Italian insurer SIAT, the second defendant, was the likely cargo insurer, at the instance of CoMaCo, although the award does not say so, the court found.
It is the effective claimant in the arbitration after an assignment to it by CoMaCo of various rights.
These included Altfadul's rights under the bills of lading as assigned by Altfadul to CoMaCo.
Sevylor wanted to offset the credit of $2.58m against its damages payment.
But the arbitrators rejected this.
The court backed this decision, saying the arbitrators' award of full damages in favour of SIAT, as assignee of Altfadul, was correct in law.
