High Court dismisses off-hire appeal in Olam International v Pacific Basin Supramax

The Commercial Court has dismissed a charterer's appeal against an arbitration award that found a bulk carrier remained on hire despite leaving a Nigerian anchorage due to piracy concerns, in a judgement examining the effect of deleting standard-form clauses from the BIMCO Piracy Clause.

Handing down judgement on 14 August 2026 in Olam International Limited v Pacific Basin Supramax Limited (The 'Grande Island'), His Honour Judge Hodge KC, sitting as a judge of the High Court, dismissed an appeal brought under section 69 of the Arbitration Act 1996 against a London arbitration award made in favour of the shipowner.

The dispute arose under a time trip charterparty on an amended New York Produce Exchange form, for a voyage from Ghent to Nigeria carrying bulk wheat. The vessel had been ordered to discharge at Warri in the Gulf of Guinea but, unable to berth, sailed away from the anchorage for approximately three days between 13 and 16 December 2021 before returning, a decision the owner attributed to the master's concerns about piracy risk.

Central to the appeal was clause 81, the BIMCO Piracy Clause, incorporated into the charterparty with sub-clauses (a) and (b) expressly deleted. Those deleted provisions would have given the owner an absolute right, based on the master's reasonable judgement, to refuse to proceed to, or to leave, an area exposed to piracy, obliging the charterer to issue alternative orders. What remained was sub-clause 81(c), entitling the owner to take "reasonable preventative measures" to protect the vessel where it proceeds through an area actually exposed to piracy risk, with the vessel remaining on hire.

The charterer, Olam International, argued the tribunal had erred in finding that leaving Warri fell within clause 81(c)(i), contending the deletion of sub-clauses (a) and (b) demonstrated an intention to remove any right to leave the area altogether, leaving the vessel off-hire under the charterparty's standard off-hire provision. His Honour Judge Pelling KC had earlier granted permission to appeal on the basis the tribunal's reasoning was "obviously wrong", having failed to explain how its construction of clause 81(c)(i) sat alongside the deletion.

HHJ Hodge KC disagreed, dismissing the appeal by two alternative routes. First, he held that clause 81(c) was unambiguous when read on its own terms, given the words "including but not limited to" preceding its list of preventative measures, meaning resort to the deleted sub-clauses as an interpretive aid was impermissible under the principles established in Mopani Copper Mines plc v Millennium Underwriting Ltd. Second, even if the deletions were relevant, he found no basis to conclude the parties intended to cut down the broader liberty in clause 81(c)(i) by removing the separate, and more absolute, rights conferred by sub-clauses (a) and (b).

The judge also rejected the charterer's reliance on the ejusdem generis principle, finding the wording of clause 81(c)(i) left no room for reading down the general words by reference to a narrower category of measures confined to steps taken within the affected area.

Had the appeal succeeded, the judge indicated he would not have remitted the matter to the tribunal, accepting the charterer's submission that the owner's alternative arguments under clauses 17 and 79 offered no realistic prospect of success. As it stood, the charterer's appeal was dismissed in its entirety, with the arbitrators' award upheld and the vessel confirmed as having remained on hire throughout the disputed period.