A, a shipping company, entered into a contract with another shipping company, B, which was in need of assistance in the English Channel due to a propeller failure on one of B's vessels in a severe storm. However, A's tugboat had to deviate on its way to B's vessel's position in the Channel in order to ride out the storm, and therefore came to rescue B's vessel seven days later than planned, which resulted in B suffering a loss.

Consequently, the tugboat was arrested in January 2020 in the Netherlands as security for B's maritime claim against A. The claim was to be settled by arbitration in London. The arrest was later lifted, as A provided security for the maritime claim in the amount of EUR 362,000, as well as costs of EUR 102,000.

On 28 January 2022, the tugboat was arrested for the second time concerning the same maritime claim while berthed in Aalborg, Denmark. The reason for this rearrest was that B's legal advisers in England now thought that the costs of the arbitration proceedings would be far higher than was originally estimated at the time when the tugboat was arrested in the Netherlands.

A appealed the rearrest to the Western High Court of Denmark, claiming that it was unjustified.

Held: B had not proven that a good cause existed in this case that justified the rearrest of the tugboat. On that basis, the rearrest on 28 January 2022 was unjustified and should be lifted.

During the proceedings, B argued that the facts of the case had turned out to be more complex than first assumed, and that the case required a very comprehensive disclosure procedure in England, which had resulted in considerable costs being incurred. For that reason, the conditions laid down in the Danish Merchant Shipping Act (the Act), s 93(5), which corresponds to art 3.3 of the Arrest Convention 1952, for rearresting the ship in order to satisfy these additional costs had been fulfilled.

A contended that the arrest on 28 January 2022 was unjustified, and argued that the arrest was made for the same claim and of the same ship as the earlier arrest in the Netherlands, which was contrary to s 93(5) of the Act. No good cause existed for rearresting the tugboat since the costs of the arbitration proceedings were predictable at the time of the original arrest of the tugboat in the Netherlands. Furthermore, A contested the estimated amount of costs, and argued that B had to bear the risk of any increase in the estimated costs, which was why this could not justify a rearrest of the tugboat.

Section 93(5) of the Act provides:

A creditor may not obtain arrest in ship more than once for the same claim. The same applies when security is provided to prevent or lift arrest in a ship. However, this does not apply if the creditor proves that the security was finally released before the subsequent arrest was requested, or there is another good cause (særlig grund) for making the arrest.

Here, there was no good cause for rearrest.