This was an application by the defendant for the revision of the previous decision of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeal (26 June 2018, 2016/13815-2018/4816) (CMI2006), which partially reversed the decision granted by the Bandırma 1st Civil Court of first instance (3 May 2016, 2013/347-2016/203).

Held: The defendant's appeal to revise the decision is admissible. The decision of the Civil Chamber (26 June 2018, 2016/13815-2018/4816) (CMI2006) is reversed in favour of the defendant on the grounds explained below, and the counter-claim is upheld in that respect.

The Supreme Court affirmed that the counter-claim relates to demands for the collection of the alleged damage suffered by the plaintiff due to the unjustified provisional attachment imposed on the relevant ship and the general average pro-rata contribution determined by the general average report.

The Court affirmed that its previous judgment correctly set out the Turkish law on general average. However, the Court found that the average report had not been completed on the date of the initiation of the counter-claim, and that there was only one cargo owned by a single party on the ship; therefore, it was only the two shipowning and cargo-owning interests who would participate in the distribution of general average. The Court further found that since no general average report had been approved under arts 1272-1285 of the TCC, there was no inappropriateness in the decision to collect the pro-rata contribution. Consequently, the Court held that there was no legal provision preventing the initiating of a lawsuit directly to apply for collection of a pro-rata contribution, and therefore considered that there was a legitimate interest in the defendant filing its counter-claim.