Mitsubishi Electric Corporation of Japan (the plaintiff) brought an admiralty action in rem for damage to its cargo against the owners of the Dong Do (the defendants). The action arose out of the shipment in early May 1987 of three parcels of electrical machinery loaded onto the Dong Do at Kobe in Japan for carriage to Hong Kong. The consignee was China Light and Power Co Ltd. The goods were damaged upon discharge. The Dong Do was owned by the Hanoi Maritime Transportation Co, a Vietnamese shipping company, was voyage chartered by its agent the Seiwa Shipping Co Ltd to the Meishin Shipping Co Ltd (Meishin) pursuant to the terms of a fixture note dated 24 April 1987, which incorporated the terms and conditions of a Gencon charterparty. The plaintiff alleged, in its statement of claim, dated 23 November 1988, that loss and/or damage to their electrical machinery sustained because of the defendants' negligence and/or breach of duty as bailees in and about the loadings, storage care, custody, carriage, discharge and delivery thereof. The claim, made in bailment and/or negligence, did not rely upon any contractual relationship between the parties. In their defence and counter-claim dated 28 December 1988, the defendants alleged that the three bills of lading evidenced carriage contracts with them as the carrier. It was common ground that cl 17 of each bill of lading stipulated that the carrier would be discharged from all liability unless suit was brought within one year after the date on which the goods should have been delivered. The defendants pleaded that the goods should have been delivered by 21 May 1987 at the latest and that, as the writ of summons were not issued until 11 July 1988, the claim was time-barred.

One of the main issues was about the identity of the carrier (art 1.a) and the definition of a contract of carriage (art 1.b) under the Hague Rules and whether this differed from the domestic implementation of the Rules in the Japanese Carriage of Goods by Sea Act (the Japanese COGSA).

Held: The claim was time-barred.

The plaintiff relied upon the existence of an antecedent contract which, it argued, under Japanese law indelibly stamped the charterer with the character of carrier. The plaintiff argued that although the 'contract of carriage' as defined in art 1.b of the Hague Rules applied only to a contract of carriage covered by a bill of lading or any similar document of title, the Japanese COGSA was made applicable to a charterparty irrespective of whether a bill of lading was issued or not. Although the Court did not directly challenge this argument, it ultimately held that it would not be proper for this Court to allow the antecedent contract issue to be raised for the first time on appeal.