On 22 October 2021, the vessel Mekhanik Yuzvovich collided with the port facilities owned by LLC TMT (the claimant). At the time of the allision, the ship was owned by Meotida Shipping Ltd (the defendant). Eleven months after the incident, the vessel entered a Russian port in the Rostov Region. The claimant applied for the arrest of the ship. At the time of the application, the ship had been renamed the River Queen and had been transferred to River Queen Maritime Ltd.

Held: The application is dismissed.

The legal basis for ship arrest in Russia is the Arrest Convention 1952, the Merchant Shipping Code of Russia (the MSC RF), which stipulates procedural and substantive grounds for ship arrest, and the Commercial Procedure Code of Russia (the CPC RF), which provides for the procedure according to which the ship arrest can be granted by a commercial court.

Under s 9 of the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Commercial Court of Russia No 55 dated 12 October 2006, if a statute or international treaty provides for the rules on security measures different from the CPC RF, the CPC RF's provisions apply only when the statute or international treaty do not stipulate otherwise.

According to art 1.2 of the Arrest Convention 1952, arrest means 'the detention of a ship by judicial process to secure a maritime claim, but does not include the seizure of a ship in execution or satisfaction of a judgment. Under art 3.1 of the Convention, a maritime claimant can arrest the vessel involved in the incident or owned by the person liable. The same rules are prescribed by art 390 of the MSC RF.

Therefore, based on the mentioned statutes, international treaties and world practice of ship arrest, the ship can be arrested if: 1) there is a maritime claim against this particular ship (arrest in rem); and 2) the ship is owned or chartered by the person liable for the claim (arrest in personam).

River Queen Maritime Ltd, not the defendant, was the owner of the ship when the application was made. Therefore, the ship was not owned by the person liable and could not be arrested. Moreover, the arrest may have negative consequences for the current shipowner, who has no connection with the claim.