This was an appeal in cassation against the judgment of the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal, 6 December 1995. Scorpio Maritime Ltd (Scorpio) was commissioned by Stardust Marine (Stardust), the owner of the Friday 13, to manage the project transforming the ship into a luxury cruise ship, renamed the Friday Star. Scorpio arrested the ship in the port of Marseille as a guarantee of the recovery of its remuneration from a head contractor and also for the price of supplies made to the ship. Stardust applied for the ship's release from arrest. The Court of Appeal refused to release the ship.

Stardust argued that the protective seizure of a ship cannot be carried out, on the basis of the Arrest Convention 1952, except by virtue of a maritime claim. By refusing nevertheless to grant the release of the vessel, after having noted that part of the debts under which Scorpio had been authorised to arrest the ship were consequent to a contract of supervision of work, so that they did not have the nature of a maritime claim, the Court of Appeal violated arts 1 and 2 of the Convention. The Court of Appeal, which found that part of the debts by virtue of which the protective seizure had been authorised did not have the nature of maritime debt, could not maintain this measure, without investigating the amount of those claims invoked which had the nature of maritime claims. By failing to do so, the Court of Appeal deprived its decision of a legal basis with regard to arts 1 and 2 of the Convention.

Held: Appeal dismissed.

Apart from its inaccurate reasoning denying the claim arising from the project management contract for the transformation of the ship the character of maritime claim within the meaning of art 1.1.l of the Arrest Convention 1952, which covers claims arising from the construction, repairs and equipment of a ship, the Court of Appeal correctly held that, on the basis of the Convention, the protective seizure of a ship is possible for the whole debt, even if the claim alleged as the cause of the seizure is only partly maritime in nature.