GHANA NATIONAL TRADING CORPORATION v. S.S. PACIFIC CURRENT AND OTHERS

JUDGMENT OF CECILIA KORANTENG-ADDOW AG.J.

This is an application for an order to restrain the ship, S.S. Pacific Current and her master and crew from sailing out of the territorial waters of Ghana pending the final determination of a suit brought against the master of the vessel by the applicant corporation (hereafter called the applicants). The claim is for $500,000.00 damages for damage caused to sugar consigned with the ship as a carrier to the applicants.

The grounds of the application as contained in the affidavit in support of the motion is that if the ship is allowed to sail away the sum of $500,000.00 (United States dollars) will be lost to the Ghana National Trading Corporation. In elaborating on this, counsel for the applicants said he entertained some fears that if the vessel leaves the Ghana territorial waters, the master may not come to defend the claim and if the applicants obtained a judgment on their own evidence, unchallenged by the respondents, such a judgment will be a defaulting one and the applicants will have difficulties in enforcing the judgment against the respondents outside Ghana. Counsel for the applicants also referred to the bill of lading, clause (3), and argued that since clause (3) limited the jurisdiction of the court to adjudicate on any dispute arising from the bill to the country where the respondents have their principal place of business, he feared that if the master and the ship left the country and judgment was obtained against them, the respondents may successfully raise clause (3) against the enforceability of such a judgment.

In reply Mr. Aidoo, counsel for the respondents, relying on Halsbury's Laws of England (3rd ed.), Vol. 21, para. 766 submitted that to grant the injunction will impose unnecessary hardship on the respondents and urged the court to consider the balance of convenience to the parties and the injury which the respondents would suffer if the injunction was granted and he should ultimately turn out to be right, and that which the applicants on the other might sustain if the injunction was refused and he should ultimately turn out to be right. It is the respondents' contention, that the ship owners have given a mandate to Lloyds Bank of London to give the applicants a guarantee to secure a claim to the tune of U.S. $450,000.00 which the competent court may find to be due to the applicants.

The fears which the applicants entertain are, to some extent, genuine and I sympathise with them. I also a