The second issue of Maritime Law Journal in 2022 covers the period from April to June. We traditionally summarise quarterly statistics on “maritime” disputes heard by commercial courts. This time, the statistics are unique as compared to the previous issues of the Journal since it focuses more on the disputes in the field of public maritime law. In this regard, we note separately which public law disputes we qualify as maritime ones.

Maritime disputes for the purpose of these statistics are those which relate to merchant shipping and, in some cases, passenger transport. As a consequence, some public law disputes which relate to the maritime industry, e.g., those over the title to immovable property in seaports or offshore activities, do not fall into this category. On the contrary, administrative liability cases for illegal border crossing, customs and environmental offences are considered to be maritime cases. Moreover, disputes on registration of title to maritime vessels in the relevant registers are also included in this overview.

Another peculiarity of these statistics is that there has been a significant decrease in the number of cases in the courts of appellate and cassation instances where the Russian Merchant Shipping Code (hereinafter – MSC RF) is mentioned. Without further research, it is difficult to say with certainty what this trend due to. However, taking into account the invariably international nature of merchant shipping, it can be assumed that this situation arises from the foreign policy and economic situation in which the Russian Federation finds itself after 24 February 2022. In this context, it will be even more interesting to look at maritime case statistics in the next issues of the Journal.

Cases heard in courts of cassation instance (court of districts)

In April-June 2022, only eight maritime cases were heard in the courts of cassation instance. All of them dealt with private maritime law issues. The courts mainly considered monetary claims relating to various agreements. Such cases are seldom of much interest since they focus on the question of whether the money has been paid for services actually rendered. At the same time, these cases also sometimes contain legal problems. For example, it is noteworthy that, in one case, demurrage was charged as “damages for vessel demurrage” despite the fact that such “damages” were set out in the contract. The vessel demurrage was also considered as a breach of contract (case No. A40-128757/2021). Of course, the court did not delve into the nature of demurrage and did not qualify them as damages for “breach of contract” or its “normal course”. However, the existence of such issues in practice may be interesting for further research.

Below is the table showing the distribution of cases among the courts of cassation instance (district courts).

Cases heard in courts of appellate instance

There were 39 cases in the courts of appeal where the MSC RF was mentioned. Only 19 cases of these could be attributed to maritime disputes. In other cases, the Code was mentioned occasionally, mainly because of the compulsory pre-trial procedure established therein. Moreover, one of the “occasional” cases deals with bankruptcy issues. The most frequent occasional references to MSC RF were in the rulings of the Ninth Commercial Court of Appeal.

Five of the 19 maritime cases concern issues of public maritime law. These cases mainly relate to customs violations and violations of the state border crossing. It is interesting that one of the cases deals with violations of the pricing procedure for transporting passengers by water transport. The price was lower than the established rates (case No. A59-3104/2021).

In private maritime law, most disputes are still over the recovery of consideration. However, there are also interesting cases in appellate courts. For example, in one case the court directly applied the rules on a carriage to relations under a freight forwarding agreement, which is rare in Russian judicial practice (case No. A40-99883/2021).

Below is the table showing the distribution of cases among the courts of appeal.

Cases heard in courts of the first instance

There was a slight increase in the number of cases heard by the courts of the first instance compared to the previous quarter (96 cases compared to 76 cases from January to March 2022). 58 cases of these 96 relate to the private law matters and 48 cases relate to the public law sphere. In the Archive of commercial court rulings, the distribution of the cases is as follows: in the “MSC” keyword there are 33 cases (10 public law cases and 23 private law cases); the “harbour master” – 49 cases (25 private law cases and 24 public law cases); the “time charter” – six cases (five private law cases and one public law case); the “bareboat charter” – two private law cases; the “navigation” – four private law cases.

In the private maritime law field, most cases are disputes over the recovery of money under various agreements (time charter, carriage, and maritime agency). In the public law field, most cases deal with illegal border crossing and customs violations. Several disputes were related to the violation of the environmental regulations by seaports and shipowners.

It is noteworthy to emphasise the interesting case related to the bunker oil spill. In this case, the commercial court applied the relevant provisions of Chapter XIX.1 of the MSC RF (case No. A56-91171/2021).

Overall, the trends in the courts of the first instance are unchanged compared to the statistics in previous issues of the Journal.

Conclusion

In the period between April and June 2022, the commercial courts heard 143 maritime disputes. 80 of these cases relate to private maritime law issues and 63 of these cases dealt with public law matters. Most disputes still relate to the failure to fulfil monetary obligations under various agreements. There are also cases concerning damage to the cargo and bunker oil spills. In the public law field, the vast majority of cases relate to the illegal Russian border crossing. ■

The Review was prepared by Bulat Karimov