In this action in rem and in personam the plaintiff, Intercon Management SA of Greece, in its writ dated 13 April 1976, claimed against both defendants an amount of USD 250,000, arising out of two charterparties entered into between the plaintiff and the second defendant, the Republic of Lebanon.

On the same date, the plaintiff made an ex parte application seeking an order of a warrant of arrest of property, namely the cargo ex the ship Pitria Spirit, consisting of approximately 4,200 mt of sugar in the bonded stores of Nicos K Pattichis in Limassol, the property of the second defendant. This application was based on the Cyprus Admiralty Jurisdiction Order 1893, rr 50 and 51, and also under the inherent powers of the Court of Admiralty.

In support of this application, the affiant, Xenofon Georghiou, employed by Messrs S Kyprianou & Co, advocates of Nicosia, and who was authorised by the plaintiff to swear the affidavit, alleged that the two charterparties entered into and concluded between the plaintiff, as shipowner, and the second defendant, the former undertook to carry the cargo on behalf of the latter from Limassol to Beirut or any other Lebanese port. The charterparties also made provision for demurrage and in compliance with the terms of the charterparties, the shipowners sent to Limassol their ships Baghis and Jutland to carry the goods. But when the plaintiff offered to load the ships as per the provisions of the charterparties, the second defendant in breach of their obligations was unable and/or avoided and/or refused to allow the goods to be loaded on the ships, thus causing the plaintiff loss and damage. The affiant further alleged that the goods or part thereof were still at Limassol, and in case the warrant applied for is not granted, the goods may be removed in which case the plaintiff's damage will be irreparable.

On the following day, the same affiant made a supplementary affidavit alleging that the cargo in question was also the subject-matter of a dispute between the defendants and the owner of the Pitria Spirit and according to their information, negotiations were being held between the second defendant and the owners of that ship for a settlement and that the cargo would be removed out of the jurisdiction of the Court.

Pausing here for a moment, it is clear that what the plaintiff is now alleging is that the cargo of sugar was not transported by its ships but by the Pitria Spirit, a vessel belonging to another shipowner which has nothing to do with and is not connected in any way with the ships of the plaintiff. It is not clear whether the freight was paid in advance to the owners of the Pitria Spirit, but one thing is clear, that the cargo of sugar which has been stored in bond in Limassol, for reasons connected with the crisis in Lebanon, was unloaded in Cyprus.

On 14 April 1976, having read the contents of the application and the affidavits before me, and in view of the urgency of the matter, I have granted an order for the issue of a warrant for the arrest of the cargo of sugar, exercising my jurisdiction under r 54 of the Cyprus Admiralty Jurisdiction Order 1893, imposing the condition that the applicants should file in Court to the satisfaction of the Registrar an amount of CYP 20,000 to be answerable in damages to the respondents in case the claim will not succeed.

The second defendant applied to have the warrant of arrest set aside.

Held: Warrant of arrest set aside.

Before dealing with the arguments of both counsel, I would state at the outset that the plaintiff, in its action before me seeks to bring itself within s 1(1)(h) of the Administration of Justice Act 1956 (UK) (the Act). Furthermore, I think I ought to observe that in the present case, not only are the defendants foreign, but so too is the plaintiff who invoked the jurisdiction of the Court because of the two charterparties made in Greece. With this in mind, I now turn to consider the jurisdiction of this Court, exercising its Admiralty jurisdiction, As it has been said in a number of cases, the Supreme Court of Cyprus is vested with the same powers and jurisdiction as those vested in or exercised by the High Court of Justice in England in its Admiralty jurisdiction on the day immediately preceding Independence Day: see Paschalis v Ship 'Tania Maria' (1975) 9 JSC 1232, 1240-1241. The jurisdiction of the High Court in Admiralty matters is now defined by s 1(1) of the Act.

We can look to the Arrest Convention 1952 so as to help us to construe the Act. As Sir Gordon Willmer said in The Jade [1976] 1 All ER 441, 455: 'since Part 1 of the 1956 Act was passed for the purpose of giving effect to the International Convention relating to the Arrest of Sea-going Ships, it is permissible to look at the terms of the Convention where phrases used in the Act are thought to be capable of more than one meaning. This arises particularly in relation to s. 3 of the 1956 Act, which governs rights of arrest and is presumably intended to give effect to Article 3 of the convention.'

With this in mind, I turn now to s 1(1) of the Act. It is safe to infer, according to the accepted principle of statutory interpretation, that claims specified by the Act in language the same as that of previous statutes should he given the same meaning. No doubt, the extent of the Admiralty jurisdiction, as the cases show, is the subject of a considerable case law interpreting statutory provisions that over the years have become well-known. Turning particularly to s 1(1)(h) 'any claim arising out of any agreement relating to the carriage of goods in a ship or to the use or hire of the ship' I think I ought to reiterate that in the writ the claim sought to be enforced by the plaintiff is a claim against the cargo ex the ship Pitria Spirit, a ship which has no connection at all with the plaintiff, but for a breach of the two charterparties alleged to have been made between the plaintiff and the second defendant. In construing, therefore, s 1(1)(h)) of the Act, which has been invoked in this case, it is important to state that the claims covered by paras (a)-(h) refer exclusively to ships and had nothing to do with the arrest of cargo.

This paragraph (h) to my mind is directed to two eventualities in so far as it is concerned with a claim arising out of an agreement relating to the carriage of goods in a ship. The ship referred to must be the ship in which the goods are carried in pursuance of the agreement. With respect to counsel for the plaintiff, nothing arises in this case in relation to this part of the para, but the latter part of the para refers to a claim arising out of an agreement relating to the use or hire of a ship, and such a claim does not necessarily have anything to do with the carriage of goods, for a ship can well be hired or used for other purposes. It seems to me, therefore, that the ship to which the writ referred to is the ship Pitria Spirit, which has nothing to do with the case in hand. But I would go further and state that even if I am wrong, the position is not remedied when one looks to the provisions of s 3 of the Act. The mode of the exercise of Admiralty jurisdiction was not the subject of comprehensive enactment until s 3 was enacted following the Brussels Convention. Case law on the section (save as to its application to sister ships) is almost non-existent, not only in England but also in Cyprus. This section makes clear that Admiralty jurisdiction may exist and be exercisable by action in personam without an action in rem being available. The action in rem may be invoked only in the cases mentioned in ss 3(2) and 3(5). One of the reasons for thus limiting the availability of the action in rem is, I have no doubt, that the Brussels Convention provides by art 2 that a ship of a contracting State may not be arrested save in respect of one of the maritime claims set out in art 1.

Pausing here for a moment, I would state that I have looked to see whether the claim of the plaintiff can by any stretch be seen as coming within a maritime claim set out in art 1.1 in the Arrest Convention 1952, but regretfully I was unable to do so. I think, put briefly the Convention permits the arrest of ships in respect of the maritime claims specified in art 1, but in respect of no other claims (see art 2). It further permits of course the arrest of a sister ship when the ship in respect of which the claim arises has passed out of the ownership of the defendant (see art 3), but again this has nothing to do with the present case.

I have no jurisdiction in rem in the case which is now before me, and, therefore, I am bound to set aside the writ because the plaintiff cannot invoke the jurisdiction in rem against the first defendant in so far as it relates to a claim against the first defendant. I would also set aside the warrant of arrest of the property of the second defendant which, in my view, is unconnected with the cause of action of the plaintiff.