Galtrade Ltd v BP Oil International Ltd (The “Pioneer”) – QBD (Comm Ct) (Adrian Beltrami QC sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court) [2021] EWHC 1796 (Comm) – 5 July 2021

Sale of goods – Fuel oil – Seller in breach of quality obligation in contract – Buyer purporting to reject cargo – Seller treating buyer’s rejection as repudiatory breach – Whether relevant obligation was condition or intermediate term – Whether buyer entitled to reject cargo – Whether buyer entitled to claim for wasted expenditure – Whether buyer in breach of contract – Quantum of seller’s loss

By a contract dated 10 October 2018 the defendant seller agreed to sell to the claimant buyer four parcels of low sulphur straight run fuel oil (SRFO) from November 2018 to February 2019 fob Taman on the Black Sea coast. The third parcel (Parcel 3) was loaded on the vessel Pioneer on 10 February 2019.