Oceanbulk Shipping & Trading SA v TMT Asia Ltd

Oceanbulk Shipping & Trading SA v TMT Asia Ltd
Court	Supreme Court
Citation	[2010] UKSC 44
Court membership
Judges sitting	Lord Phillips, Lord Rodger, Lord Walker, Lord Brown, Lord Mance, Lord Clarke, Sir John Dyson
Keywords
Without prejudice, construction

Oceanbulk Shipping & Trading SA v TMT Asia Ltd [2010] UKSC 44 is an English contract law case concerning interpretation of contracts.

Facts

TMT and Oceanbulk had reached a written settlement agreement after a dispute in a series of freight forward contracts, but then disagreed about what the settlement meant as well. They had been in "without prejudice" negotiations. TMT argued that as an exception to the rule excluding "without prejudice" negotiations from consideration of construing the settlement agreement, they could be taken into account if they would ordinarily be admissible as part of the factual matrix or circumstances in construction of an agreement.

Judgment

The Supreme Court held there should be an exception to the without prejudice rule for facts communicated between the parties in the course of without prejudice negotiations where such facts would assist the court to construe an agreement that resulted from the negotiations.

See also

• English contract law