By Roslan Khasawneh

May 11 (Reuters) – The UK Supreme Court dominated in favour of bankrupt marine gasoline provider OW Bunker Malta in a dispute over fee liabilities, doubtlessly leaving patrons world wide liable to pay for a similar gasoline twice.

“The Supreme Court unanimously dismisses the appeal by the Owners, PST Energy,” the Court mentioned on Wednesday.

PST Energy 7 Shipping LLC (PST Shipping) contracted with OW Bunker to purchase marine gasoline, referred to as bunkers, in 2014. OW Bunker then subcontracted the deal to a Rosneft Marine (UK) Ltd subsidiary to bodily ship the gasoline to PST’s vessel Res Cogitans.

However, the gasoline was delivered across the time that OW Bunker went bankrupt and OW Bunker didn’t pay Rosneft nor did PST pay OW Bunker.

ING Bank, as the corporate chargeable for settling OW Bunker’s money owed, tried to gather fee from PST that was contractually owed. However, PST countered that it was not liable to pay ING as a result of the contract was a sale of products ruled by the Sale of Goods Act of 1979.

Following the November 2014 collapse of Denmark-based OW Bunkers, the world’s greatest bunker provider on the time, this left a whole lot of ship house owners liable to paying twice for a similar bunkers – to ING because the assignee of OW Bunkers, underneath the contractual settlement, and to the bodily suppliers for the precise bunker gasoline.

Earlier court docket choices discovered that ING might acquire fee, organising the Supreme Court resolution on Wednesday.

“Given the outcome of this case, Members and other operators will need to carefully review their bunker contracts in order to protect themselves from such situations arising in the future,” mentioned the UK Defence Club, an insurance coverage membership for the marine business.

Marine corporations have been intently watching the case because it units up a precedent that corporations concerned within the OW Bunker chapter may very well be double-charged for the gasoline.

“Shipowners are left facing double jeopardy and competing demands for payment for the same supplies of bunkers from both insolvent OW Bunker and from physical suppliers,” mentioned Scott Pilkington and Paul Dean, attorneys with Holman Fenwick Willan in Singapore and London, in an e-mail. “Owners and operators who have not settled OW Bunker’s claims will now face renewed action by ING Bank.”

(Reporting by Roslan Khasawneh; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

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