This was an appeal in cassation against the judgment of the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal, 9 September 1986.

Vehicles and public works machinery destined for a Turkish port were loaded in Marseille (France) on the ship Ogur Islamoglou chartered by Genel Denizcilik Nakliyati (Genel). The ship broke down off the coast of Sardinia and had to be towed to Porto X. VAI, the receiver of the goods, unloaded the cargo at its expense without judicial authorisation, with a view to having it transported by another vessel. VAI sued Genel in its capacity as carrier for damages. The Court of Appeal held in favour of VAI.

Genel criticised the judgment for having declared VAI's claim as admissible and as not prescribed, by taking into consideration, not the date of delivery of the goods, but that of the completion of the delivery of the goods. Genel argued that the Court of Appeal violated art 3.6 of the Hague Rules, from which it follows that the starting point of the limitation period is the date on which the goods should have been delivered, and this delivery should have taken place simultaneously.

Genel further argued that it should not have been required to pay damages to the receiver of the goods in its capacity as carrier, because the carrier is responsible only for commercial faults, and not for nautical faults. By noting that the damage was due to a failure of the helm system, that is to say to a nautical fault, even though this would have been accompanied by a commercial fault consisting of an overload, the trial Judges violated the provisions of art 4 of the Hague Rules.

Held: Appeal dismissed.

The Court of Appeal noted that, even if the majority of the goods had been unloaded before this date, all of the goods had not yet been delivered on 17 December 1980, with Genel preventing the cargo receiver 'despite a court decision, to dispose of the cargo'. The Court of Appeal correctly deduced from its findings that the carrier had, by its doing, postponed to 17 December 1980 the starting point of the limitation period, which made admissible VAI's action brought by summons issued on 17 December 1981.

The Court noted that the failure of the electrical busbar system on the ship was caused by a short-circuit resulting from insufficient protection of an electric relay. Having held that this failure was due to the gross negligence of the carrier in the maintenance of the ship which was its responsibility, rather than due to a nautical fault, the Court of Appeal rightly ruled that Genel was responsible for the damages in question.