The claimant shipowner, claiming demurrage under a voyage charterparty, applied for summary judgment, alternatively the striking out of the defendant charterer's defence. The charterparty was for the carriage of a cargo of crude oil from Brazil to Long Beach, California. The charterer argued that the owner's demurrage claim was time-barred due to late notification.

Clause 15(3) of the charterparty provided for two distinct time bars:

Owners shall notify Charterers within 60 30 days after completion of discharge if demurrage has been incurred and any demurrage claim shall be fully and correctly documented and received by Charterers, within 90 days after completion. If Owners fail to give notice of or to submit any such claim with Documentation provided available, as required herein, within the limits aforesaid, Charterers’ liability for such demurrage shall be extinguished.

The issue was whether the time of completion of discharge of cargo should be determined according to:

1. local time in California, where discharge took place, in which case the claim was time-barred; or
2. either (a) the time zone of the recipient of the required notice (here, Spanish time, that of the charterer), (b) the time zone of the giver of the required notice (here, Belgian time, that of the owner) or (c) GMT, given that the contract applied English law. On each of these approaches, the claim was not time-barred.

The charterparty was governed by English law and provided for the exclusive jurisdiction of the English High Court (cl 54). By cl 32(3)(b), cargo claims (including claims made by the charterer) were subject to the Hague-Visby or Hague Rules. Article 3.6 of those Rules discharges the owner from liability in respect of the goods 'unless suit is brought within one year of their delivery or of the date when they should have been delivered'. The charterparty contained no general provision regarding dates and times.

Held: The time of completion of discharge of cargo should be determined, for the purposes of the cl 15(3) period for notification of demurrage claims, using local time at the place of discharge, here Pacific Standard Time. On that basis, the notification in the present case is out of time, and the charterer is entitled to judgment.

Among other things, the Judge noted that the date of discharge of the cargo is significant not only for the purpose of notification of demurrage claims, but also for other purposes. It represents the end of the contractual service to the shipper, and ends the running of laytime or demurrage. Under cl 15(3) itself it is also the start date for the separate 90-day period for service of supporting documents. It is generally the starting point for the time limit under the Hague-Visby rules for cargo claims. It would be unnatural and illogical either for:

(a) there to be more than one date of discharge, used for different purposes; or

(b) the date of discharge pursuant to the Hague-Visby Rules to be determined by something as potentially arbitrary and non-transparent as the place of receipt (or potential receipt) of a notice of any demurrage claim.

Whether the date of delivery for Hague-Visby purposes is determined using local time at the place of discharge (which is the obvious approach) or using the relevant court’s own time zone (as was mooted during submissions but appears less attractive), the owner's case creates the prospect of the same event being differently dated for different purposes.