This was an appeal in cassation from the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal, 25 September 1997. According to the judgment under appeal, delivered in summary proceedings, Petredec Ltd, claiming to be a creditor of Tokumaru, was authorised, by order issued on request by the President of the Commercial Court, to arrest the ship Sargasso. DK Lines, who claimed to be the owner of this ship, brought a claim against Petredec Ltd for release of the vessel from arrest.

Held: Cassation.

It follows from arts 8.2 and 8.3 of the Arrest Convention 1952 that a ship flying the flag of a non-Contracting State may be arrested in the jurisdiction of any Contracting State in respect of any of the maritime claims enumerated in art 1 of the Convention or of any other claim for which the law of the Contracting State permits arrest. However, any Contracting State is entitled wholly or partly to exclude from the benefits of this convention any government of a non-Contracting State or any party who has not, at the time of the arrest, its habitual residence or principal place of business in one of the Contracting States.

After noting that this vessel flies the flag of Panama, which has not ratified the Arrest Convention 1952, the judgment under appeal held that French law was applicable and that if Petredec Ltd justified a certain claim against Tokumaru, it did not have to provide proof that the ship belonged to this company. By ruling thus, while it had not established that the advantages of the Arrest Convention are refused to Panama by virtue of a legal or regulatory provision, the Court of Appeal violated the aforementioned provisions.

The judgment delivered on 25 September 1997 between the parties by the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal is therefore struck down and annulled. The case and the parties are returned to the position they were before the aforementioned judgment and the case is remitted to the Montpellier Court of Appeal to be decided correctly.