In the first part of this article, we shall examine the nature of “special charges” on cargo, how and when they arise, and the respective obligations of ship and cargo owners. Part 2 will consider the shipowners’ rights to secure recovery for the charges he may have incurred on cargo’s behalf, cargo owners’ defences and finally the liability of insurers.

Special charges comprise expenses reasonably and necessarily incurred by a shipowner, or by the master as the servant of the shipowner, for the preservation or benefit of cargo while it is in his custody. They are thus to be distinguished from expenses incurred for the common safety or for the benefit of the common adventure, which are chargeable to all interests as general average. They also exclude expenses to which the shipowner is committed under the contract of carriage in order to earn his freight.

This definition is submitted with diffidence in view of the wide variety of the circumstances that may give rise to the necessity to incur special charges. Any attempt to define those circumstances could only have a limiting effect, but it is probably true to say that they must be extraordinary and involve an element of urgency.

Special charges are also frequently referred to as “particular charges”, but as the latter expression, in its insurance context, is defined in the Marine Insurance Act 1906, consideration of these near-synonymous terms is left over until Part 2 of this article.

The liability of the receiver or owner of the goods to pay special charges is dependent upon the performance by the shipowner of his duty to act properly. If the shipowner or master acts improperly, or fails to act when he should, he will be liable to the cargo owner for the consequences.

The leading case is Notara v. Henderson.1 A ship carrying a cargo of beans from Alexandria to Glasgow, having called at Liverpool in the course of the voyage, came