A judge from London's Admiralty Court has decided that the owners of the containership Solong can limit their financial responsibility for the serious collision in 2025 with the tanker Stena Immaculate. This ruling high...
A judge from London's Admiralty Court has decided that the owners of the containership Solong can limit their financial responsibility for the serious collision in 2025 with the tanker Stena Immaculate. This ruling highlights the strong nature of modern maritime liability protections.
In a decision made on May 22, Justice Andrew Baker dismissed efforts by the interests of Stena Immaculate to challenge this limitation under Article 4 of the 1976 Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims (LLMC), despite the fact that the accident resulted in the death of one seafarer, a large fire, and significant damage to both ships.
The incident occurred in March 2025 off the Humber coast in England, when the cargo ship Solong, registered in Portugal, struck the anchored tanker Stena Immaculate at about 16 knots while it was loaded with over 220,000 barrels of jet fuel.
The collision caused the death of Filipino seaman Mark Angelo Pernia and led to an explosion and fire that lasted for several days. The captain of Solong, Capt. Vladimir Motin, was later found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison, as he failed to take evasive action despite the tanker being visible on radar for more than 30 minutes before the crash.
The main issue in the Admiralty Court was whether the actions leading to the accident were so reckless that Solong's owners should lose their usual right to limit damages under the LLMC.
The owners of Stena Immaculate claimed that unsafe practices on Solong were likely known by the management on shore, suggesting that the vessel was “a collision waiting to happen.” They sought to use Article 4 of the convention, which allows for the removal of limitation rights when losses result from a shipowner’s intentional or reckless behavior that they knew could lead to such losses.
However, the judge rejected this argument, stating there was no solid evidence that senior management knowingly permitted Solong to operate in a dangerous manner that would increase the risk of collision.
Justice Baker noted that the defense relied on an “inherently fanciful notion” that management knowingly took risks with the vessel.
He characterized their defense as “speculative imagination” lacking any factual support.
Additionally, the ruling has broader legal implications since the court dismissed a very narrow interpretation of Article 4 put forth by Solong's owners.
The owners argued that “such loss” meant the specific loss that happened, implying they needed to prove management foresaw a collision with Stena Immaculate.
Instead, Baker supported a broader view, stating that “such loss” refers to the general type of loss, not the specific vessel that was struck.
Despite this broader interpretation, the interests of Stena Immaculate still failed to prove a solid case for breaking the limitation.
The ruling emphasized that the LLMC system is designed to make it very difficult to overcome limitation rights.
Citing guidance from the IMO adopted in 2021, Baker stated that the convention's liability protection is meant to be “virtually unbreakable.”
The investigation by the MAIB into the collision is still ongoing.
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