Hawk Shipping Ltd v Cron Navigation Ltd

Facts

The claimant, Hawk Shipping Limited, the owners of the vessel Sea Hawk II, and the defendant, Cron Navigation Limited, the charterers, are both Maltese companies. The vessel was time chartered on an amended Baltime 1939 form for four months, plus or minus ten days, with options for the charterers to renew for two further periods of three months. She was delivered at Kherson in the Ukraine on 21st July 2000 and performed a number of voyages before the owners withdrew her from the charter on 20th October 2000. The charterers commenced arbitration, in which a considerable number of issues and counter-issues were raised; both sides relied on written submissions and neither requested an oral hearing. By an award dated 13th September 2002 the arbitrator, Mr. William Packard, sitting under the L.M.A.A. Small Claims Procedure, found that the owners had wrongly withdrawn the vessel and were liable to the charterers for US $72,477.32 plus interest and costs, including $46,600 for loss of earnings over the remainder of the contractual period. The owners applied to the arbitrator under section 57(3)(a) of the Arbitration Act 1996; he corrected an accepted double-counting error, reducing the award to $68,477.32, and explained his approach to loss of earnings. The owners then challenged the award in the Commercial Court for serious irregularity.