This was an appeal in cassation against the judgment of the Paris Court of Appeal, 26 February 1985. Under a bill of lading of 28 September 1979, Société Navale Chargeurs Delmas Vieljeux (SNCDV) took charge in Rouen (France) of three cases of cycle parts destined for Abidjan (Côte d'Ivoire) on the ship Christian-Vieljeux. Two of these cases never reached their destination. The insurer Compagnie d'Assurances Rhin et Moselle, subrogated in the rights of the receiver of the cargo, sued SNCDV for FRF 20,446.20.

The judgment under appeal, after having held that the Hague-Visby Rules were applicable for the determination of the lump sum compensation, rather than the Law of 18 June 1966, requested that the Government interpret art 4.5 of this Convention because of the difficulty resulting from its combination with the second amendment to the statutes with reference to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the adoption of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs).

SNCDV complained that the provisions of the two international Conventions in question were clear, and could not give rise to any interpretation issues.

Held: Appeal dismissed.

For the resolution of this dispute, it was important for the trial Courts - who ruled on the state of the law prior to the entry into force of the new Protocol of 21 December 1979, the ratification of which was authorised by Law N° 86-798 of 3 July 1986 - to know whether the definition of the currency of account provided for by art 4.5 of the Hague-Visby Rules, referring to Poincaré francs, in order to allow compensation for damage occurring during maritime transport, was not called into question by the second amendment to the statutes of the International Monetary Fund, which removed all references to gold for national currencies and created a new unit of account (the SDR). The Court of Appeal rightly considered that this question, which brings into play the monetary public order as it results from the relevant international agreements in force, required recourse to interpretation by the Government.