A question of seaworthiness

摘要

The Dutch Supreme Court has recently ruled that, in the event that a carrier provides containers to a charterer, and those containers are not suitable for the transportation of the goods because they are poorly maintained, the vessel is to be considered unseaworthy because the carrier did not maintain the containers in a proper manner and therefore was in breach of its duty of care. The dispute arose in connection with the transportation of 398 parcels of unprocessed tobacco from Cameroon to Amsterdam. CETAC, an African tobacco grower and trader, loaded the parcels into four containers provided by Nile Dutch Africa Line (NDAL), which shipped them on the chartered vessel NDS Provider. Transportation was carried out under a charter party subject to the Hague-Visby Rules and Netherlands law.