It has been a big news in shipping law that the UK Supreme Court in May 2017 pronounced a judgment that the total loss casualty of M/V Ocean Victory at Kashima, Japan in October 2006 was attributable to abnormal occurrence and thus the claim for damages by her bareboat charterers side to her time charterers by reason of breach of safe port undertaking shall be dismissed. But it may not be well known that there existed another legal proceedings in Tokyo, Japan where the Court adjudged that the casualty was caused by negligent navigation by the user of the port, i.e. the master. Akiyoshi Ikeyama of our office sheds light on the latter cases and analysed the backgrounds of contradictory judgments between these two countries in the following paper mainly for non-Japanese shipping people. This is found in “WaveLength” No.63 (2018), annual English bulletin issued by The Japan Shipping Exchange, Inc.
