Dispute over contract of carriage of goods by sea between Global Visa Co., Ltd as the plaintiff and Russian Inspector’s & Marine Surveyor’s Corporation as the defendant (hereinafter referred to as Inspection Company)

The carrier of goods by sea should not adopt the rules about the limitation of liability provided for in the Maritime Code if he delays the delivery of goods due to the ship’s unseaworthiness or unreasonable deviation

In the case of dispute over contract of carriage of goods by sea between Global Visa Co., Ltd as the plaintiff and Russian Inspector’s & Marine Surveyor’s Corporation as the defendant (hereinafter referred to as Inspection Company),the carrier Inspection Company began to transport the goods on July 28, 2015 and the ship was unseaworthy at the beginning of the voyage without repairing the No. 1 generator while it was  marked in the ship’s classification certificate that “the ship can only sail before June 4, 2015 without the No. 1 generator”. During the voyage, the ship departed from the geographical route of “Bering Sea-Vladivostok, Russian-Dalian, China”, which is also specified in the certificate of origin of the goods, and deviated to Busan Port, South Korea to repair the ship. The ship did not arrive at the port of destination until November 28, 2015, so the carrier failed to deliver the goods within the agreed period, constituting a delay in delivery. The Court decided that Inspection Company had known that the goods were raw materials of food property with timeliness requirements, but carried the goods on the unseaworthy ship, unreasonably deviated for repairing, and became stranded in a port unrelated to the goods for a long time, constituting an act or omission recklessly with knowledge that such loss would probably result. The rules about the limitation of liability provided for in Article 57 of the Maritime Code should not be adopted.