반선지연으로 인한 손해배상액의 산정 - The Achilleas사건에서 영국 최고법원 판결을 중심으로 -

The recent U. K. House of Lords in The Achilleas examined the circumstances in which a defaulting charterer would be liable to the owner for exceptionally large lost profits when redelivering late under a time charter. Both a majority of arbitrators and the lower courts, on the facts of the case, found in favour of the full amount contended by the owner under the remoteness rule in Hadley v. Baxendale(1854) 9 Exch 341. They found the owner's loss was not too remote, because it was within the charterer's reasonable contemplation at the time of agreement that the late redelivery would cause the lost profits of a following charter. All five judges of the House of Lords, however, found in favour of the charterer contention that he was only liable for the difference between the charter rate and the market rate for the period of the delay in redelivery, since the owner's loss was too remote to be recoverable. This method of assessing damages is known as “the overrun period measure”. The critical problem in the House of Lords' decision is that the different approaches between the judges were adopted when interpreting the remoteness rule, even though the five judges all reached the same conclusion. As a result, this decision is unlikely to provide any certainty to contracting parties. This study, therefore, examines the majority approach in the House of Lords' decision on the issue relating to remoteness of damage in case of late redelivery under a time charter, and offers the alternative approach to resolve the uncertainty.