CA-2024-000950 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1019

The judge attached significance to the fact that the English version of the clause refers to detention ‘under’ quarantine regulations or ‘by reason of’ infringement of customs regulations, while the American clause refers to detention ‘under’ both kinds of regulation. She considered that the words ‘by reason of’ were of wider scope, because a detention could occur by reason of infringement of a customs regulation even if it was not a detention under the regulation. Accordingly the American clause would have provided for a more limited exclusion if it were not for the effect of the ‘and similar’ wording which operated to bring back the two versions of the clause into alignment with each other.

I do not accept this reasoning. In my judgement, and in agreement with Lord Justice Lloyd in The Wondrous [1992] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 566, 571, I consider that there is no significance to be attached to the fact that in the English clause the detention in one case must be ‘under’ a particular kind of regulation and that in the other case it must be ‘by reason of’ a different kind of regulation. I note that Arnould, para 24-46, takes the opposite view from the judge, suggesting that ‘under quarantine regulations’ is broader wording than ‘by reason of infringement of customs regulations’, but I consider the better view to be that these are equivalent wordings and would be so understood by business people. In any event the contrast in this respect between the language used in the English and in the American clause does not shed any light on the scope of the American clause.