Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
AUSTRALIAN MARITIME LAW
Martin Davies*
CASES
1. Australian Maritime Safety Authority v Globex Shipping SA1
Procedure—service outside Australia—statutory cause of action
Ninety tons of bunker oil allegedly escaped from the bulk carrier Regina near Cape Upstart in North Queensland, causing substantial oil pollution damage to the central Great Barrier Reef. The plaintiff, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (“AMSA”) spent $1.4 million in combating the pollution and subsequently cleaning up the damage caused by that pollution. AMSA sued the registered owner of the ship, a Panamanian company with a business address in South Korea, and also the ship’s P&I Club, seeking to recover its expenditure under the Protection of the Sea (Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage) Act 2008 (Cth) (“the Bunker Pollution Act”), which is Australia’s enactment of the International Convention on Civil Liability for Bunker Oil Pollution Damage 2001 (“the Bunker Convention”). AMSA applied to the Federal Court of Australia for leave to serve the originating application and statement of claim on the shipowner in Korea and Panama.
Decision: Leave granted.
Held: (1) Under the Federal Court Rules 2011 (Cth), r.10.43(4), the court will grant leave to serve originating process outside Australia only if it is satisfied that: (a) the court has jurisdiction in the proceeding; (b) the proceeding is of a kind mentioned in r.10.42; and (c) the party has a prima facie case for all or any of the relief claimed in the proceeding.
(2) The Admiralty Act 1988 (Cth), s.9 confers jurisdiction on the Federal Court to hear in personam actions on a maritime claim. By s.4(3)(ba)(i) of that Act, which was added in 2008, claims under the Bunker Pollution Convention are “maritime claims” for purposes of the court’s admiralty jurisdiction. Thus, the court had jurisdiction to hear the proceeding.
(3) There was no doubt that the action brought by AMSA was of a kind mentioned in r.10.42, because it was a proceeding based on contravention of an Act committed in Australia (r.10.42(14)) and a cause of action arising in Australia (r.10.42(1)).
(4) In determining whether a prima facie case exists, the court must determine whether the material presented to the court shows that a controversy exists between the parties that warrants the use of the court’s processes to resolve it and whether causing
* Admiralty Law Institute Professor of Maritime Law, Tulane University Law School; Director, Tulane Maritime Law Center; Professorial Fellow, Melbourne Law School.
1. [2018] FCA 1477.
2