No. 1/99 March 1999

New, Easier to Remember Website Address
There will soon be a new way to reach the UCT Marine & Shipping Law website:
www.uctshiplaw.com
The site will remain on the UCT server, but we have arranged a re-direct to bring you to our pages. You have only to remember "uctshiplaw dot com"! The new link should be in operation by the end of April.

1. New Format for our Notices
   Our notices have taken on a new look and a new name. Our new uctSHIPLAW.com bulletin will now come to you as a file attached to an e-mail. If any of our recipients have difficulty extracting the file from their mail message, please let us know and we will send the text as part of the mail message. We hope to revert to sending out bulletins at lease once a month, and whenever there is something interesting to tell you.
   
2. New Shipping Law Statutes
   • The Short-Term and the Long-Term Insurance Acts came into effect on 1 January 1999. The Long-Term Act repeals the Insurance Act of 1943 -- but re-enacts in almost identical terms the old s 63 dealing with misrepresentations and warranties. The new section is s 53.
     The Short-Term Insurance Act applies to marine insurance contracts, including them in the generalised definition of 'transportation policies'.
     The Act does away with the power of the insured to choose South African law and jurisdiction to do battle with an insurer -- there is no longer any categorisation of a 'domestic policy'.
     Rather surprisingly in these times of shady dealings, the Short-Term Act contains a section (s 54) which provides that a policy shall not be void merely because of an illegality. Presumably if that illegality involved some form of mala fides on the part of either party, the other would be able, in the normal course, to repudiate the (nevertheless valid) contract, and walk away.
     We have put extracts from the Short-Term Insurance Act onto our website.
   • The Ship Registration Act was passed in September 1998, but is not yet in force. The text of the Act is on our website. Registration regulations are being prepared, and once they are ready the Act will take effect.
3. Website Update
   There are a number of surprises added to our website in the past few weeks.
   • George Young's latest edition of Seaviews, entertaining as ever and with deep insight into the world of shipping as it affects South Africa, goes up around the beginning of each month. The April edition is now available.
   • We are fortunate to have been given leave by the Comité Maritime International to put up the CMI Uniform Rules for Sea Waybills, and the CMI's Guidelines for Oil Pollution Damage. Access them direct from here or via the Quick Index on the contents page.
   • Ever struggled to get hold of a copy of the English Marine Insurance Act? The full text is now available under our legislation source material pages.
   • Patrick Holloway's dissertation dealing with title to sue is now on site in full text. This dissertation is relevant to the ongoing debate surrounding the Sea Transport Documents Bill (text on site).
   • The SAMSA Act text has been updated to the text as passed.
4. Recent Judgements
   • The Urgup
     Judge Thring on 4 February delivered an interesting analysis of the entitlement of parties to early discovery of documents in application proceedings. In denying claimants who were burdened with the onus of proving an association of ships the opportunity of embarking on a fishing expedition for non-specified documentation relating to transactions which would support their contentions of an association, Judge Thring confirmed the general practice of allowing discovery in applications only in exceptional circumstances.
   • The Forum Victory
     On the same day in Durban, the High Court overrulled an earlier single judge decision (in The Golden North) which had found that a claim arose for purposes of s 11(4) of the Admiralty Jurisdiction Regulation Act when credit was given by a supplier of a ship rather than when the debt became due and payable. The Full Bench of the Durban High Court has now taken the view (in The Forum Victory) that a claim shall only be considered to have arisen when it becomes due and payable. There must surely be little doubt that this decision will go to the Supreme Court of Appeal?
   • The Rizcun Trader
     Judgement was this month handed down in The Rizcun Trader (Conradie J.). The vessel had been arrested, and an application launched to have the arrest order set aside. Those acting for the vessel called for security from the peregrine arresting plaintiff for the costs of the application to set the arrest aside. In conceding an obligation to lodge security for the costs of the application to set the arrest aside, the arresting plaintiff averred that such obligation must be subject to the vessel lodging counter security for the costs of defending the arrest and the costs of the present interlocutory application to determine security and counter security entitlements of both parties.
     Conradie J. found that the arrestors were bound by Uniform Rule 47 to lodge security, and that this obligation should not be excused by the latitude allowed by Admiralty Rule 25. He ordered security to be lodged to the satisfaction of the Registrar. He was not persuaded that he should use his discretion in terms of s 5(2)(c) to award tit-for-tat security, allowing both peregrine parties to be secured for their respective legal costs.
5. MLA AGM
   The MLA will be hosting its AGM at The Wilderness during the extended weekend of 9-11 April. If you intend coming and have not yet booked, do please contact The Wilderness Karos via their Central Reservations Office at (011) 484 1641. The weekend promises interest and fellowship.
6. LLM Course Up and Running at UCT after a Year's Break
   Lectures started last month for the 1999 LLM in either Marine or Shipping Law. The Shipping Law programme has been restructured into 3 semesterised courses: Admiralty Jurisdiction and Practice in the first semester, and Maritime Law and Marine Insurance in the second semester. Next year we will add Carriage of Goods by Sea in the second semester.
   Enrolments for Admiralty include a strong local contingent, challenged by students from Nigeria, Germany, Norway and Bermuda. Student details and e-mail addresses are on our site.

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