In a judgment that must serve as a model of clarity, Steven
Chong J explained why justice demanded that the plaintiff had to
compensate the defendant for its act in arresting the
defendant's vessel. In the process, Chong J brought welcome
clarity to aspects of both the procedural and substantive law
relating to ship arrests which should be welcomed by
practitioners.
1. Background
This is yet another case which arose out of the fallout from the
insolvency of the OW Bunkers group. The plaintiff supplied bunkers
to the defendant's vessel, the "Xin Chang Shu".
However, there was no contractual nexus between the plaintiff and
the defendant. Rather, the defendant had contracted with an OW
entity – OW China – which in turn contracted with
another OW entity – OW Singapore – and it was OW
Singapore that contracted with the plaintiff. Naturally, with the
insolvency of the intermediate OW entities, the plaintiff wanted to
recover the price of the bunkers directly from the
