This was an appeal from the judgment of 17th Commercial Court of first instance (29 April 2016, 2016/62-2016/53).

The defendant objecting to the provisional attachment of the vessel claimed that it was not the owner of the ship. Instead, the ship was the property of the State of ... , and it was the demise charterer of the ship. The plaintiff fuel supplier did not sell the fuel to the defendant, it sold it to another party. The fact that the invoice included the details of the captain/owner/operator did not establish a procurement agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant. The plaintiff's application was unjust, and the defendant requested the abolishment of the decision.

The agent of the third party claiming to be the owner of the ship requested the reversal of the decision on provisional attachment on the ground that his client was the agent of the owner/operator of the ship which was subject to the provisional attachment. Neither the agent nor the ship had any direct or indirect debts to the plaintiff which requested the provisional attachment. The ship was not provided with fuel and no agreement was made.

The plaintiff requested that these objection be rejected on the ground that all documents presented by the other parties as the basis for their objections to provisional attachment were outdated and invalid, and did not have the effect of supporting their objections. The fuel supplied by the plaintiff was supplied upon the request of the shipowner, the ship's master, and the agency representing the ship. The signature of the ship's master representing the shipowner requesting the fuel and the seal of the ship were present. The plaintiff requested provisional attachment to be effected on a sister ship of the relevant ship, which was in the same ownership on the date when the maritime claim arose. The plaintiff argued that provisional attachment was justified in accordance with art 1369.2 of the Turkish Commercial Code (the TCC), [which is based on art 3.2 of the International Convention on the Arrest of Ships 1999 (the Arrest Convention 1999)].

The Court decided to reverse the decision on provisional attachment on the ground that the decision was made in respect of the procurement of fuel by the relevant ship, which was owned by the shipowner. In accordance with art 1369.2 of the TCC, an objection was made by the third party shipowner, on the basis that the registered owners of both ships [ie the relevant ship and the arrested sister ship] were different according to the updated records presented on the file. Therefore, the provisions of art 1369.2 of the TCC were not met.

The plaintiff appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Held: The appeal is dismissed.

Due to the reasons explained above, it was unanimously decided on 10 October 2016 that all the plaintiff's appeals were rejected, and the decision, which was found to be in accordance with the procedure and law, was approved.