Frank Stewart Dethridge Memorial Address 2017: The MV Good Faith - The Relevance of Good Faith in Shipping Disputes

Abstract

The notion of good faith is, of course, well known in the context of the law of insurance. Marine insurance cases abound with interesting – and difficult points – concerning the nature and scope of the duty of good faith in that context. The recent – and somewhat controversial - decision of the Supreme Court in the “DC MERWESTONE” provides an interesting discussion of the nature and scope of the duty of “good faith” in the insurance context. However, that is not part of my enquiry today.

Instead, my focus concerns what I think is the common belief – certainly in England - that any general doctrine of good faith outside the field of insurance is a concept foreign to the common law of contract.

You may be pleased to hear that I do not intend to add to the huge mass of learned writings that have been generated over recent years as to whether there should – or should not – be some “general organising principle” of good faith.

Rather, my task today is much more limited: it is to consider some of what Bingham LJ has referred to as the “piecemeal solutions” that have been adopted in response to demonstrated problems of unfairness in the specific context of shipping disputes and which involve considerations of “good faith”.