According to the judgment under appeal (Paris Court of Appeal, 14 December 2017), LKW Walter Internationale Transportorganisation AG (LKW), an Austrian transport provider, regularly entrusted its trucks and trailers to Louis Dreyfus Lines (LDL) for sea crossings between Spain and the UK. On 26 May 2014, following several maritime transports carried out in May 2014, LDL issued an invoice for EUR 18,550, which LKW only partially paid, making a deduction of EUR 9,243.36 corresponding to a claim that LKW invoked for damage caused to a truck during transport by LDL on 8-9 April 2014. LDL opposed the legal set-off between these debts and requested, in its counterclaim, compensation for its damage.

LKW complained that the Court of Appeal judgment ordered it to pay LDL EUR 9,243.36 and interest on the grounds: first, that it was entitled to set off its claim against the payment of its debt; and secondly, that:

1) Article 10 of the Hague-Visby Rules provides that:

The provisions of these Rules shall apply to every bill of lading relating to the carriage of goods between ports in two different States if:

(a) the bill of lading is issued in a contracting State; or

(b) the carriage is from a port in a contracting State; or

(c) the contract contained in or evidenced by the bill of lading provides that these Rules or legislation of any State giving effect to them are to govern the contract;

whatever may be the nationality of the ship, the carrier, the shipper, the consignee, or any other interested person.

It followed from this provision that the Convention only applied if the transport was subject to a bill of lading. In finding the Hague-Visby Rules applicable while holding that there was no bill of lading, the Court of Appeal violated art 10 of the Hague-Visby Rules.

2) Even if the Hague-Visby Rules were to apply in the absence of a bill of lading, this supposed that there was a 'similar document of title'. By considering LDL's request for compensation under the Hague-Visby Rules without noting the existence of a document similar to a bill of lading justifying the application of this Convention, the Court of Appeal deprived its decision of a legal basis.

Held: Appeal dismissed.

First, the Court of Appeal's decision regarding set-off is justified.

Secondly, it follows from art 1.b of both the Hague and Hague-Visby Rules that a similar document of title for the transport of goods by sea is equivalent to a bill of lading for the application of this Convention. Having stated that the absence of a bill of lading can be supplemented by any similar document, and having noted that the parties had drawn up a document entitled detalles de reserva (details of the booking) for the transport of April 2014 of the truck damaged during the crossing between the ports of Gijón, Spain, and Poole, UK, the Court of Appeal pointed out that the shipper and the maritime carrier had concluded a booking agreement which could be assimilated to a transport contract, thus legally justifying its decision to declare LKW's claim time-barred after one year in accordance with art 3.6 of the Hague-Visby Rules, despite the absence of a bill of lading.