This is the abstract of the article of Konstantinos Bachxevanis, published in June 2026 in the Journal of International Maritime Law, entitled “Incompetence and Passage Planning in The Happy Aras: Inference, Adverse Inference, Common Sense and the ‘CMA CGM Libra Paradox’ – A Critical Analysis” (31 JIML, pp. 148–159). In the author’s view, following The CMA CGM Libra and The Happy Aras, the manner in which English case law has developed regarding passage planning and unseaworthiness means that the next case before an English court involving similar facts and issues will likely need to proceed to the Court of Appeal for clarification of the proper application of causation principles. It is also possible that consideration by the Supreme Court will be required so that the ratios of Lord Wright in the two seminal House of Lords cases, Smith Hogg & Co. Ltd v Black Sea & Baltic General Insurance Co. Ltd and Monarch Steamship Co. Ltd v Karlshamns Oljefabriker, may be revisited if it is determined that the trend in English law of transforming the concept of seaworthiness from a condition relating to the ship itself, its manning and its systems into a purely mental and evaluative exercise encompassing every risk external to the vessel ought to be reversed.
The abstract follows:
“In The Happy Aras, the Admiralty Court found the master incompetent and the vessel causatively unseaworthy. The shipowners, therefore, lost their claim for General Average contributions from cargo, having also failed to discharge the burden of proving that they had exercised due diligence in this respect. The Admiralty Court also found that the Passage Plan was defective in many respects, although that alone did not render the vessel unseaworthy. As both experts agreed, unsurprisingly, had the Passage Plan, with all its defects, been followed, the grounding would not have occurred. The Admiralty Registrar therefore addressed the defects of the Passage Plan at the causational level, avoiding a deeper inquiry into potential defects, the supposed causative impact of which might be self-fulfilling rather than legally determinative.
While the shipowners in The Happy Aras lost their claim, the decision, in the Author’s view, is generally favourable for shipowners and their P&I Clubs. It arguably represents the first reversal of the Admiralty Court’s harsh finding on Passage Planning in The CMA CGM Libra, offering a practical recognition of the realities of maritime navigation and the limits of formal compliance. In the author’s view, the decision on the Passage Plan issue is a realistic acknowledgment of how such matters operate in practice, rather than in theory. The comparative and critical analysis advanced in this commentary suggests that, from a causation perspective, the reasoning in The CMA CGM Libra could be said to rest on a self-refuting premise: the defective Passage Plan rendered the vessel unseaworthy only because it was not followed; in The Happy Aras, it did not.”
Copy of the article can be requested by email from the author: [email protected].