Suez Canal blocked by grounded megaship

[Barrister]

Does Evergreen Shipping owe a duty of care to other ships in the sea to not block the Suez Canal?

I honestly have no idea - maritime law is it's own very weird thing (down to the fact that a lot of actions are in rem where you sue the boat itself, rather than the owner).

I'm sure we'll find out.

I'm also sure that if I could make the case that my company lost $50 million due to interrupted supplies because off this incident, I'd look at who I could sue to recover damages from and/ or look to have my loss covered by insurance (and then the insurance company would look to see who they could recover that money from).

And I think it's well established that there were significant economic impacts from the disruption to shipping. And I'm quite certain that people and companies are unlikely to just eat the loses and leave it at that. Therefore, I expect, law suits will follow. It's the way of the world.

Sometimes the law isn't as much of an ass as you'd think though.

If you're a company whose supplied are interrupted, there's almost certainly a clause in the contract with your shipper that absolves them of responsibility if they're unable to make the shipment on time due to unforeseen circumstances (and if your company is really that worried they'd probably buy insurance).  But there's no contract between this company and Evergreen, and there's almost certainly no duty of care between Evergreen and some random company in the UK that (say) isn't receiving their sex arses on time.

[Admiral Yi]

Force majeure!

[Berkut]

Does Evergreen Shipping owe a duty of care to other ships in the sea to not block the Suez Canal?

I honestly have no idea - maritime law is it's own very weird thing (down to the fact that a lot of actions are in rem where you sue the boat itself, rather than the owner).

I'm sure we'll find out.

I'm also sure that if I could make the case that my company lost $50 million due to interrupted supplies because off this incident, I'd look at who I could sue to recover damages from and/ or look to have my loss covered by insurance (and then the insurance company would look to see who they could recover that money from).

And I think it's well established that there were significant economic impacts from the disruption to shipping. And I'm quite certain that people and companies are unlikely to just eat the loses and leave it at that. Therefore, I expect, law suits will follow. It's the way of the world.

I think the evaluation in reality is more like this:

1. The money lost is gone. Sunk cost.
2. Is there a case that can be litigated with enough of a chance of success to get money from someone else that it makes financial sense to pursue it? If so, pursue.

Whether or not the case actually has any factual relevance to what happened is incidental, I suspect.

[Malthus]

Aren't the pilots employed by the Egyption state?

And doesn't Egyptian law require that ships hire THEIR pilots?

Yes - but all responsibility etc is with the ship and their crew.

I suspect it is gonna be complicated!

- there may be contractual language between the owner of the ship and the canal authority over liability for accidents, jurisdiction, choice of law, etc. Is such a dispute subject to courts or to some sort of international arbitration?

- is there a treaty that affects how this type of accident is litigated?

- the canal is run by a state-owned company, which may or may not be immune from liability under either local Egyptian law

- some weird twists thrown in by maritime laws ...

This.

Plus I suspect a lot of lawsuits won't involve the Ever Given or the Canal Authority at all, but rather between insureds and insurers as to whether the delay caused is covered by insurance.

True, but you can be sure that every insurer who may be on the hook for damages caused by delays will third-party every person who could potentially have been negligent and so the source of the damages. Assuming some weird quirk of maritime law doesn't prevent them.

As in "I, the insurer, say your contract of insurance does not cover economic loss caused by delays. But if it does, and I have to pay you, I will take on the claim you could have had against the canal authority and the owner of the ship (or against the ship itself), because they caused the delay".

Typical subrogation claims.

[grumbler]

Aren't the pilots employed by the Egyption state?

And doesn't Egyptian law require that ships hire THEIR pilots?

Yes - but all responsibility etc is with the ship and their crew.

Unless Maritime law has changed since I was ship's crew, that's not true with respect to a pilot.  When the pilot takes the conn, he takes on responsibility for the safe navigation of the ship.  It's the one time the captain isn't responsible.

[Berkut]

Aren't the pilots employed by the Egyption state?

And doesn't Egyptian law require that ships hire THEIR pilots?

Yes - but all responsibility etc is with the ship and their crew.

Unless Maritime law has changed since I was ship's crew, that's not true with respect to a pilot.  When the pilot takes the conn, he takes on responsibility for the safe navigation of the ship.  It's the one time the captain isn't responsible.

It seemed odd to me that you could require the captain to take on and employ a pilot that you get to choose, not him/her, then tell them that they are required to follow that pilots instructions....but you are responsible for what happens?

Seems like a pretty bad deal.

[The Brain]

How many pilots become hatamoto?

[grumbler]

How many pilots become hatamoto?

Only two.

[Sheilbh]

Unless Maritime law has changed since I was ship's crew, that's not true with respect to a pilot.  When the pilot takes the conn, he takes on responsibility for the safe navigation of the ship.  It's the one time the captain isn't responsible.

Yeah my understanding is it's something the shipping companies agree with the Suez canal authority, so I think it's contractual rather than under maritime law.

It seemed odd to me that you could require the captain to take on and employ a pilot that you get to choose, not him/her, then tell them that they are required to follow that pilots instructions....but you are responsible for what happens?

Seems like a pretty bad deal.

The alternative's the Cape of Good Hope and it's still super rare for a crash to happen so on balance it's probably worth it.

[Berkut]

Unless Maritime law has changed since I was ship's crew, that's not true with respect to a pilot.  When the pilot takes the conn, he takes on responsibility for the safe navigation of the ship.  It's the one time the captain isn't responsible.

Yeah my understanding is it's something the shipping companies agree with the Suez canal authority, so I think it's contractual rather than under maritime law.

It seemed odd to me that you could require the captain to take on and employ a pilot that you get to choose, not him/her, then tell them that they are required to follow that pilots instructions....but you are responsible for what happens?

Seems like a pretty bad deal.

The alternative's the Cape of Good Hope and it's still super rare for a crash to happen so on balance it's probably worth it.

That is the business alternative - we are talking about actual legal responsibility. You can SAY "You are responsible if Berkut beats his kids!" and maybe even get talked into signing something to that effect if the alternative sucks, but that doesn't actually make you responsible.

[mongers]

I wonder if Al-Sisi's prestige project, the hurried one year expansion of the canal might have help create this accident?

[alfred russel]

That is the business alternative - we are talking about actual legal responsibility. You can SAY "You are responsible if Berkut beats his kids!" and maybe even get talked into signing something to that effect if the alternative sucks, but that doesn't actually make you responsible.

Egypt is a sovereign country and can have the legal structure it wants.

[alfred russel]

The company I work for had an operation in Egypt, with a local partner. The local partner breached just about every clause of the agreement, and we pulled out, which we clearly had the rights to do under the contract. The partner sued us, our attorneys assured us he had no basis to do so. Then we went to court and it turned out he was friends with or related to just about everyone at the courthouse, and we were of course just an American company. We lost the case big time and had to pay him a fortune.

Such is life.

[Malthus]

That is the business alternative - we are talking about actual legal responsibility. You can SAY "You are responsible if Berkut beats his kids!" and maybe even get talked into signing something to that effect if the alternative sucks, but that doesn't actually make you responsible.

Egypt is a sovereign country and can have the legal structure it wants.

Here's where it can get complicated.

I know next to nothing about maritime law, but this is an area rife with treaty obligations - Egypt is (possibly) signatory to treaties that may set some rules about how accidents are to be adjudicated, exactly to avoid the scenario where a case against Egypt has to be tried in an Egyptian court, where the outcome is that Egypt wins every case ...

... of course Egypt may ignore these obligations (if they exist), but that leaves them open to a lawsuit elsewhere, say some type of international arbitration, and to possible attachment of their assets that exist outside of Egypt.

I had to look some of this up some years ago on another, non-maritime case involving an infrastructure project in Egypt, where the foreign project partner was (justifiably) wary of being screwed in the local courts if they were ripped off by their Egyptian state-owned company partner.

The whole situation is enough to gladden the hearts of lawyers worldwide! 😀

[Berkut]

That is the business alternative - we are talking about actual legal responsibility. You can SAY "You are responsible if Berkut beats his kids!" and maybe even get talked into signing something to that effect if the alternative sucks, but that doesn't actually make you responsible.

Egypt is a sovereign country and can have the legal structure it wants.

How does that effect a case where non-Egyptan entities are suing each other though?