Two Christmas crackers from the Admiralty bench

Two admiralty cases of rather different natures rounded off an otherwise modest year for case law. First, Argentum Exploration Ltd v The Silver and All Persons Claiming to be Interested in and/or to Have Rights in Respect of, The Silver [2020] EWHC 3434 (Admlty) concerned the sovereign immunity of the Republic of South Africa in the context of admiralty proceedings.

The claimant was seeking a salvage reward for its salvage services in retrieving a large number of silver bars from a shipwreck located in the Indian Ocean. The silver bars had been on board the passenger and cargo liner SS Tilawa when she was sunk by torpedoes in 1942.