AJU Remicon Co Ltd v Alida Shipping Co Ltd
= No treatment has been given--only citation information is available.
[2007] All ER (D) 214 (Mar)
Court: Comml Ct
Judgment Date: 13/03/2007
Catchwords & Digest
SHIPPING AND NAVIGATION - TIME CHARTERPARTY - IDENTITY OF PARTIES - WHETHER CLAIMANT PARTY TO CHARTER - WHETHER BROKER HAVING ACTUAL OR OSTENSIBLE AUTHORITY TO NEGOTIATE ON CLAIMANT'S BEHALFThe proceedings concerned a charterparty of the MV Voyager on an amended NYPE form. According to the defendant, the charter was concluded between itself and the claimant by a recap telex of April 2002. The telex was sent by Indosino Shipping (Indosino), a firm of intermediate brokers, said by the defendant to have been acting for the claimant as its principal, albeit instructed by Coral Shipping Co Ltd (Coral), said to have been acting under the claimant's authority as its exclusive brokers. It was the claimant's case that neither Indosino nor Coral had any authority to act on its behalf and that, in any event, it was not the charterer designated by the charterparty. The entity was described in the telex and in the formal charterparty as 'AJU LOGISTIC CO. LTD ... of the City of Seoul'. It was common ground that as at April 2002 there were in Seoul two companies whose anglicised name read as that set out in the charterparty and that neither of those two was the claimant. Although the claimant had once been called 'Aju Logistics Co Ltd', since February 2002, that was the registered name of another company in the Remicon group of which the claimant was a member. Before that date the company (AFS) had been known as 'Aju Food System Co Ltd'. The claimant contended that it could only be AFS, rather than itself, that was the charterer. The defendant argued that at the time in question, the claimant was still trading as Aju Logistics Co Ltd. The claimant brought proceedings seeking a declaration that it was not a party to the arbitration agreement contained in the charter. The issues concerned the activities of L, a former employee of L, a former employee of AFS, and whether Coral had had authority to fix the charter. L was an employee of the claimant until 2002, whereafter he worked for AFS until 16 May 2002, when he ceased working for either. He had engaged in the negotiations for the charter..
Held - On the facts, when it purported to fix the charter, Coral had been aware that it had no authority to act on behalf of either the claimant or AFS to do so. Thus, there could be no reliance by Coral on any holding out that L had authority to grant authority to fix the vessel. Nor was there any history of holding out and, in any event, the defendant relied on no such authority.
