Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
Trip charterparties and their binary endgames
Johanna Hjalmarsson*
This article takes as its starting point the normative framework surrounding charterparties and explores the limits and degree of flexibility of that contractual framework. While certain categories of charterparties are well established and universally acknowledged, it is also generally recognised, both judicially and in literature, that the parties are not bound by such categories but are free to develop their own terms, within a spectrum of hybrid contractual forms deviating from the entrenched typology. The example of trip-time charters is here considered in the context of contract certainty and predictability: while by no means a rare or recent phenomenon in chartering practice, and while textbooks and judicial dicta signal recognition in principle of this form of contract, this article argues that reality differs from such assertions. It will be argued that the absence of judicial and literary attention to these issues to date suggests a deeper unspoken truth: there are in fact no hybrid charterparties, and the endgame will always be a reversion to the binary model.
I. INTRODUCTION
The trope of certainty in commercial contract law and dispute resolution is well rehearsed.1 The parties expect, it is said, to labour in a commercial environment where the outcome of contractual stipulations is predictable and certain—this promotes commerce through clarity. Indeed, the predictability of the common law has been considered one of the beneficial characteristics of the law of England and Wales: the law does not intervene in the contract, and the parties are free to make their own contract. The courts will uphold
* Informa Associate Professor in Maritime and Commercial Law, Institute of Maritime Law, University of Southampton. The author is indebted to colleagues Professor Yvonne Baatz, Professor James Davey, Professor Andrea Lista, Dr Meixian Song and Professor Paul Todd for their comments on various drafts. Any remaining errors are attributable to the author alone.
The following abbreviations are used:
Cooke et al, Voyage Charters: J Cooke, T Young, J Kimball, L Lambert, A Taylor, D Martowski, Voyage Charters, 4th edn (Informa Law, London, 2014);
Scrutton: Sir B Eder, D Foxton, S Berry, C Smith, H Bennett, Scrutton on Charterparties and Bills of Lading, 23rd edn (Thomson Reuters, London, 2015);
Wilford’s Time Charters: T Coghlin, A Baker, J Kenny, J Kimball, TH Belknap Jr, Time Charters, 7th edn (Informa Law, London, 2014);
1. See eg I MacNeil, “Uncertainty in Commercial Law” (2009) 13 Edin LR 68.
Trip charterparties
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