This was an appeal in cassation brought by Balanca Investments Ltd (Balanca), a Gibraltar-registered company, against the judgment delivered on 2 September 2020 by the Bastia Court of Appeal (Civil Division).

On 22 June 2009, during a cruise on the yacht Nine Moons, HA died and XLW, his wife, was injured. XLW and various other affected parties sought to claim from Balanca as the owner of the yacht. On 26 January 2011 and 8 February 2012, the President of the Commercial Court of Ajaccio authorised Balanca to constitute a limitation fund set at 166,500 Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). On 24 July 2018, the claimants sued Balanca for the revocation of the limitation orders and for the fixing of the overall amount of limitation at 1.5 million SDRs. The Court of Appeal confirmed revocation of the orders and fixed the total limitation amount at 1.5 million SDRs. Balanca appealed to the Court of Cassation.

Balanca argued that art 15.2.b of the LLMC 1976 provides that a 'State Party may regulate by specific provisions of national law the system of limitation of liability to be applied to vessels which are ... ships of less than 300 tons'. The article goes on to say that a 'State Party which makes use of the option provided for in this paragraph shall inform the depositary of the limits of liability adopted in its national legislation or of the fact that there are none'. Decree No 2007-1379 of 22 September 2007, which published the 1996 Protocol amending the LLMC 1976, was notified to the depositary. However, it does not contain any provision relating to the liability regime for ships of less than 300 tons. Thus, no notification was made concerning this scheme adopted on the basis of art 15.2.b, with the result that no modification of a liability regime derogating from the Convention could enter into force. By nonetheless finding that the Decree of 22 September 2007 had the effect of raising Balanca's liability to 1.5 million SDRs, the Court of Appeal violated art 15.2.b of the LLMC 1976 by not applying it, and violated the Decree of 22 September 2007 by incorrectly applying it.

Held: The appeal in cassation is dismissed.

Applying the provisions of arts 58 ff of the Law of 3 January 1967 (now arts L 5121-1 ff of the Transport Code), which set the limits of liability for maritime claims pursuant to the LLMC 1976, the Court of Appeal judgment states that the amount of the ceilings provided for in the original version of this Convention for ships not exceeding 500 tonnage units was fixed by art 6 to 333,000 SDRs for claims for death or bodily injury and 167,000 SDRs for other claims; and that France, as permitted by the Convention, chose to reduce these limitations by half for ships of less than 300 tonnage units.

The Court of Appeal then states that the 1996 Protocol modified the limits of liability according to the tonnage of ships, bringing them to 2 million SDRs for ships whose tonnage does not exceed 2,000 tons, with regard to claims for death and bodily injury, and 1 million SDRs for other claims. France deposited the instrument of ratification of the Protocol on 24 April 2007, and the Protocol entered into force on 23 July 2007, the date appearing in Decree 2007-1379 of 22 September 2007 publishing the Protocol, making the new provisions applicable to the national territory.

Based on these statements and given that the modification of the threshold (which was raised to 2,000 tons by the amending Protocol) still included vessels with a tonnage of less than 500 tons, and thus had no impact on the calculation of the limitation of liability, France had no notification to send to the International Maritime Organization, the depositary of the Convention. The Court of Appeal correctly deduced from this that, in accordance with art L 5121-5(2) of the Transport Code, the limitation of liability amounts in this case are 1 million SDRs for claims for loss of life or personal injury, as well as 500,000 SDRs for other claims.

The plea is therefore unfounded.