AFRICAN AUTOMOBILE LIMITED v. TEMA OIL REFINERY
2021
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- G.T. WOOD (MRS) CJ (PRESIDING)
- J.DOTSE JSC
- ANIN-YEBOAH JSC
- P.BAFFOE-BONNIE JSC
- B.T ARYEETEY JSC
Areas of Law
- Contract Law
- Evidence Law
- Civil Procedure
- Commercial Law
2021
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The Supreme Court of Ghana, per J.V.M. Dotse JSC, resolved a commercial contract dispute between African Automobile Limited and Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) over a 2002 purchase order for 600,000 litres of marine mix priced at 1.63 per litre. After three tested and paid deliveries, TOR rejected the fourth, causing prolonged delays and later sought to pay under different rates in exhibit 3. The High Court entered judgment for African Automobile with multiple awards; the Court of Appeal dismissed TORs appeal, set aside special damages, reduced general damages to 350,000, ordered TOR to take delivery and pay interest from March 2006, and awarded costs. On further appeal, the Supreme Court held exhibits A and D remained binding, affirmed the general damages and interest orders, upheld the award for 540 delivery drums, and maintained costs. It only varied the Court of Appeals calculation by setting aside an additional 108,000 litres, confirming 146,000 litres outstanding. The appeal was otherwise dismissed and the Court of Appeals judgment affirmed.
JONES DOTSE JSC:
This is an appeal by the defendants/appellants/appellants, hereafter referred to as the Defendants against the judgment of the Court of Appeal, dated 11th March 2010, which also dismissed an earlier appeal filed by the Defendants against the decision of the High Court dated 15th August 2008 in favour of the Plaintiffs/Respondents/Respondents hereinafter referred to as Plaintiffs.
The defendants it must be noted lost the action at the High Court and although lost again at the Court of Appeal, had a significant part of the awards reduced downward in their favour.
BRIEF FACTS:-
The plaintiffs herein won a tender to supply 600,000 litres of “marine mix” to the defendants for the manufacture of pre-mix fuel for use by outboard motors.
The contract document was tendered and marked as exhibit A and is dated 22nd August, 2002. It is significant to note that the contract price for a litre of the marine mix was denominated in Euro and was quoted at €1.63 per litre, whilst Goil Oil Limited, the other competitor and supplier had their price quoted as €1.71 to a litre and were contracted to supply 1,000,000 litres to the defendants.
The plaintiff proceeded to supply the marine mix to the defendants according to the sample quality that they were supplied with by the defendants.
The plaintiffs successfully made three (3) deliveries of the marine mix and were paid as per the contract terms set out in exhibit A.
The defendants however refused to accept the 4th delivery of the plaintiffs and this resulted into series of meetings between the parties herein aimed at resolving the differences i.e. reference meetings held on 16/2/2005 and 1/3/2006 respectively.
Eventually, the plaintiffs were permitted to supply the 4th and other deliveries to the defendants after almost two years of stoppage by the defendants arising from the conduct of the defendants in rejecting the deliveries.
One would have expected that, the supply and receipt of the subsequent deliveries by the plaintiffs to the defendants would have ended matters, but that was not to be.
The refusal of the defendants to pay for the 4th and subsequent deliveries as per the prices contained in exhibit A but on different rates as contained in exhibit 3 led the plaintiffs to institute an action in the High Court in which they claimed the following reliefs:-
a. Recovery of the outstanding sum of euros 144,424.83 or its cedi equivalent being monies due plaintiffs from the supply of marine mix to d