Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
LIENS ON SUB-FREIGHTS AND PRIORITIES
The Attika Hope;
The Annangel Glory
The decision in The Attika Hope
1 exposes another limitation on the owners’ lien on sub-freights and shows that a defaulting time charterer may defeat an owner’s lien by assigning the sub-freights to another creditor. In fact, in the particular circumstances of the case, the sub-charterers from whom the sub-freights were due were persuaded to pay the freight to the owners but, as it turned out, it was held that they were under no legal obligation to do so. The assignment to the other creditors of the time charterers was held to have priority over the owners’ lien and the subcharterers had to pay the freight twice. Had the sub-charterers taken the usual course of interpleading, the owners’ lien would have been ineffective.
On 16 November 1983, the owners of the Attika Hope entered into a time charter with Ideomar on the New York Produce Exchange form. The charter provided, by cl. 18, that “the owners shall have a lien upon all cargoes and all sub-freights for any amounts due under this charter …”. When the time charterers entered into that charter, they were having difficulties in discharging debts to a third party, Angelakis, the plaintiffs in the action. In order to reduce their indebtedness, the time charterers agreed to assign to Angelakis the freights which would become due
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