According to a bill of lading issued in Mumbai, India, on 29 March 2014, CMA CGM SA (the carrier) was in charge of the carriage on board its vessel, the Strauss, of a refrigerated container (reefer) containing 3,744 boxes of fresh grapes. The grapes were sold by an Indian company, Indyglobal Ventures, named as the shipper in the bill of lading, for the benefit of Anton Durbeck GmbH (AD), the buyer, named as consignee and notify party in the bill of lading. The goods were carried from the port of Nhava Seva, India, to Rotterdam, the Netherlands. After the goods were successfully delivered to their destination on 22 April 2014, AD and the carrier each called in an expert after deterioration of the goods had been noted. The two experts estimated the deterioration at the same amount of EUR 14,215.63. AD received EUR 14,215.63 from its insurance company, Gaede & Glauerdt Assecuradeur GmbH & Co KG (G&G), which is now subrogated in its rights. AD and G&G sued the carrier to recover the sum before the Commercial Tribunal of Marseilles, which ordered the carrier to pay G&G the sum of EUR 14,215.63 and to AD the sum of EUR 1,120 as expert appraisal costs. The carrier appealed against this judgment, arguing that it had fulfilled its contractual duty to maintain the air blown into the reefer at the temperature of 0°C established in the bill of lading, measured by an internal data logger inside the reefer, and that there was therefore no negligence on its part. It also argued that the goods arrived at a temperature higher than that required before stuffing, which is the responsibility of the shipper. It alleged a defect specific to the goods, which was said to have been caused by the presence of fungus. And finally, the carrier claimed the application of the Brussels Convention in its original version of 25 August 1924 [ie the Hague Rules] to the bill of lading. The carrier argued that the fact that the container was delivered to the Netherlands, which is a signatory to the 1968 and 1979 Protocols amending the Brussels Convention, does not make the amending Protocols applicable.

Held: The Court of Appeal recalled that under the Rome I Regulation (cf art 3.1) the law applicable to the contract is the law chosen by the parties, that the law chosen was French law, and that France applies both the Brussels Convention in its original version [ie the Hague Rules] and the two amending Protocols in the case of international transport. Article 10 of the Hague-Visby Rules provides that they apply if 'the bill of lading provides that these Rules ... are to govern ... whatever may be the nationality of the ship, the carrier, the shipper, the consignee, or any other interested person'. Thus, the Court held that the Hague-Visby Rules (ie the Brussels Convention of 1924, as amended by the 1968 and 1979 Protocols) as referred to in the bill of lading remained applicable.

Furthermore, the Court stated that the reefer set at a temperature of 0°C as established by the bill of lading had the function of maintaining the goods at that temperature level and not of reducing an initially higher temperature, and that the fact that the data logger recorded a temperature of less than 1°C throughout the carriage suggested hot stuffing, well above 0°C, that was not attributable to the carrier. Consequently, the Court of Appeal overruled the judgment handed down by the Marseilles Commercial Tribunal and found that the carrier was exempt from liability.