Transatlantica Commodities Pte Ltd v Eurochem Trading GmbH [2026] EWHC 1494 (Comm)

“To my mind, the proposal of the FRIEDRICH SCHULTE for the November shipment dates was intended to deal with the issue of the October shipment dates which TAC was unable to accommodate as a kind of compromise.”

"As the Owners have no possibility / intention to provide the tonnage for 12/15 OCT 2020 laycan as was requested by Charterers, please note Charterers are forced to seek and take spot vessel from market to cover this shipment. All Charterers rights are fully reserved and Charterers will have no choice but to come back to the question later on and to claim the appropriate compensation or agree on alternative means of recovering their losses from the Owners."

“We agree that the FRIEDRICH SCHULTE shipment was the third shipment under the COA”, and again at ¶46(2): “As mentioned above, we agree that the FRIEDRICH SCHULTE shipment was the third shipment under the COA. This is simply the factual position”. ii) Although the Tribunal did not find in terms that the Friedrich Schulte shipment was caused by Owners’ breach, it would not have occurred but for the breach, and but for that breach Charterers would not have been entitled to have the Friedrich Schulte shipment at Contract rates. iii) Charterers did not accept Owners’ breach as a repudiation of the Contract, but instead accepted the Friedrich Schulte shipment as late performance of the third Contract shipment obligation. iv) The Tribunal also found that the option to have a fourth shipment was not exercised (Award §§ 47-61). v) Given those findings, the Tribunal erred in law in awarding damages based on “the market / contract freight differential between the ABTENAUER charter and the COA, and the costs of additional storage” (Award ¶62) for (as found) breaches in relation to a shipment (the third under the Contract) which was not non-performed but merely delayed. vi) If the third Contract shipment had simply never been performed, then an award of ‘contract/market’ damages (“Abtenauer” rates less Contract rates) would have been necessary to place Charterers in the position they would have occupied if it had been so performed. This would be necessary to put Charterers in the relevant “no breach world” of having three Contract shipments performed in accordance with the contractual terms. vii) But, since (as found) the third Contract shipment was performed, the Tribunal’s Award places Charterers in the monetary position of having four Contract shipments performed: i.e., the “Union Trader”, “Monegasque Epee”, “Abtenauer” and “Friedrich Schulte”

“It may be that such damages might possibly be assessed, as a starting point, by reference to the higher cost (on a rising charter market) of shipping cargo that should have been and needed to be shipped earlier, i.e. on the contractual date for performance of the obligation to ship the 3rd cargo. However, I cannot see that it would then be appropriate to treat as irrelevant (see the Award paragraph [65]) the benefit obtained by the fact that the actual shipment of the 3rd cargo took place – on a rising charter market – under the terms of the COA fixed at a rate lower than the then market rate. The tribunal’s award therefore confers a windfall upon the charterers, who in substance have the benefit of 2 shipments at the lower COA rate (i.e. the Abtenauer shipment, and the 3rd contractual shipment on the Friedrich Schulte) rather than only the single shipment (the 3rd shipment under the COA) which they were contractually entitled to receive.”