Griffin insured The Free Goddess against kidnap and ransom. The vessel was kidnapped in laden condition en route Egypt to Thailand and taken to Somalia in February 2021. Griffin paid the ramson of USD6.5 million and got her released in October 2021. Then Griffin entered into a settlement agreement with the owners of vessel on terms that (i) vessel will proceed to the destination port and discharge the cargo pursuant to bills of lading issued; (ii) all the rights of the owners to claim general average contribution will be subrogated to Griffin; (iii) the owners will account for any general average contribution that they receive. In breach of the agreement, the owners did not proceed to destination port, instead sold the cargo in Oman. Thereby, Griffin’s potential claim against the cargo interest for general average contribution was practically lost. In addition to that, the owners received USD800,000 which they did not account to Griffin. Griffin sued the owners’ controlling person for inducing breach of the contract and claimed the USD800,000 plus the loss of general average contribution that it would have received from the cargo owners but for the sale of the cargo at Oman. Calver J ordered payment of the USD800,000 and the damages for the loss of general average contribution to be assessed.
Prior to this, A Beltrami QC sitting as the judge of the QBD was satisfied that the service was done pursuant to CPR 6.40 (Griffin Underwriting Ltd v ION G Varouxakis [2019] EWHC 2757 (Comm)). Even if that were not to be so, he was satisfied that the owners have notice of the proceedings and the circumstances warranted dispensation with the service. He further noted that as the owners have given an address for service, it is their responsibility to ensure any documents served at the address is passed to the owners.