As the last few months have shown, the bunkering industry is volatile and risky. As such, bunker suppliers seek to include favourable terms which will assist them if a deal goes wrong. These contractual precautions range from favourable applicable law and jurisdiction clauses to the imposition of retention of title clauses. Under these clauses, parties will normally agree that the bunker supplier retains ownership over all bunkers furnished until the buyer has paid in full.

In a recent decision the Civil Court upheld a request to have bunkers supplied to the defendant vessel excluded from a court-approved private sale on the basis that retention of title clauses existed, which governed the supply of the bunkers.

Link?to the article by International Law Office?for more information on the facts, decision and comments?on this topic.