Media - News

  • Media
  • CML Working Paper: Scuttling, Fortuity, And Marine Perils — From The Mortgagee’s And The Cargo Owner’s Points Of View by Özlem Gürses

CML Working Paper: Scuttling, Fortuity, And Marine Perils — From The Mortgagee’s And The Cargo Owner’s Points Of View by Özlem Gürses

August 30, 2022 | Research
Abstract

This paper examines marine insurance issues arising from the scuttling or deliberate casting away of a ship with the connivance of the insured shipowner. Currently, where the loss is attributable to the wilful misconduct of the shipowner, not only the shipowner, but also the mortgagee of the vessel, and the cargo owner whose cargo sank together with the ship, will be barred from recovery. The paper examines the purpose of s 55(2)(a) of the Marine Insurance Act 1906 (UK) and the controversial decision of the majority in Samuel v Dumas. The author argues that this decision should be revisited in order to produce a more just ruling for the co-assured innocent mortgagee.

Keywords: Marine insurance, misconduct, fraud, shipowner, innocent mortgagee and cargo owner, composite policy, mortgagees’ interest insurance, public policy

SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4202961

Working Paper: https://law.nus.edu.sg/cml/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2022/08/CML-WPS-2203.pdf

About the Author

Özlem Gürses is Professor of Commercial Law. Prior to joining King’s College London, Professor Gürses taught a number of different commercial law subjects at the Norwich and Southampton Law Schools.

Professor Gürses has undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in law from the University of Istanbul. She also studied LLM in Maritime Law (graduated with distinction) at the University of Southampton who, following her masters’ degree, provided full funding for her PhD degree in reinsurance law.

Professor Gürses is the sole author of The Law of Compulsory Motor Vehicle Insurance (Informa, 2019), Marine Insurance Law (Routledge, 2016, 2nd ed) and Reinsuring Clauses (Informa, 2010). She also updated Insurance of Commercial Risks (Sweet and Maxwell, 2016) in its preparation for the fifth edition.

She regularly presents her research at home and abroad. Most recently she organised a conference on the law of compulsory motor vehicle insurance that took place at King’s in April 2019. She sits in the Presidential Council of International Insurance Law Association/Association Internationale de Droit des Assurances (AIDA), is the Vice-chairman of the Reinsurance Working Party of AIDA, and also a Committee member of the British Insurance Law Association.

Professor Gürses has taught insurance and marine insurance law on several different short courses as a visiting lecturer in Greece, Italy, Germany and Singapore.