Seguros Equinoccial SA (the plaintiff), an insurance company acting under an assignment of rights, claimed for the loss of machinery of Neyplex Cia Ltd, the insured and consignee of the cargo. The machinery was carried from Barcelona, Spain, to Guayaquil, Ecuador, by Mediterranean Shipping Co SA (MSC), at the request of the Spanish company Consignaciones Tránsitos y Transportes Internacionales SA (Cotransa). The lawsuit was filed against the agent of Cotransa in Ecuador, Servicios Navieros Europeos Euroservicios Cia Ltd (the defendant), which, according to Ecuadorian company law, was responsible for acting on behalf of the foreign entity.

The first instance Court dismissed the claim, stating that there was no contractual obligation between the Neyplex and the defendant. On appeal, the Court of Appeal affirmed the decision on the same grounds. The plaintiff recurred the decision on cassation before the Supreme Court/Corte Nacional de Justicia (SC), alleging procedural errors regarding the due analysis of the evidence, particularly the bill of lading and commercial invoices.

Held: The SC affirmed the decision.

The SC agreed that there was a deficiency in the Court of Appeal's decision in the analysis of the evidence. However, the SC concluded that the proper evidence to prove the relationship between the parties was the bill of lading. According to art 1.b of the Hague Visby-Rules, ratified by Ecuador, the term 'contract of carriage' applies only to contracts of carriage covered by a bill of lading or any similar document of title. The SC noted that such documents were not translated from English into Spanish as required by the civil procedure rules. The bill of lading did not prove the relation between Neyplex and Cotransa as to assign liability to the latter for the loss, and to allow a claim against the defendant. The terms and conditions of the MSC's bill of lading were neither translated into Spanish, nor did they assist to determine who was responsible for the loss, whether Cotransa, MSC or the stowage company. Therefore, there was no evidence of the liability of Cotransa nor of the intervening condition of the defendant, and the claim was dismissed.