ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at three aspects of orthodoxy as regards damages for underlap: the market rule, the rule limiting damages to the remainder of the would-be charter period, and the rule that there can be no damages for future loss of profits in the absence of a repudiatory breach by the charterer. The Court of Appeal declined to limit damages arbitrarily to the period of the lost charter, and allowed a claim for all losses of profit due to the vessel being committed to the new longer-term arrangement. Furthermore, and most tellingly, a recent decision has cast considerable doubt on whether damages for loss of profits from a voyage charter should be artificially limited to the would-be charter period. Markets for charters are thus surprisingly uncommon beasts. But there is a further problem with the supposed 'market rate' rule. This is that, even assuming there is an 'available market', using it to compute underlap damages creates its own anomalies.
