What constitutes a "maritime claim" for purposes of
admiralty jurisdiction? The most recent decision on the
interpretation of the phrase "relating to" by the High
Court of South Africa
A maritime claim is defined in the Admiralty Jurisdiction
Regulation Act 105 of 1983 (hereafter "the
Act") as "any claim for, arising out of or
relating to" (emphasis added) those grounds of
jurisdiction listed in section 1(1) of the Act. The
characterisation of a claim as a "maritime claim" is
crucial to the determination of whether a South African court of
law has admiralty jurisdiction or not: only a court exercising its
admiralty jurisdiction will have the competency to determine a
maritime claim. With this in mind, and therefore also
unsurprisingly, the phrase "relating to" (as it appears
in the definition of "maritime claim") has been the
subject of a number of South African court cases, the most recent
being Kuehne & Nagel (Pty) Ltd v Moncada Energy Group
SRL (GSJ)
