Emergency Contact Paul Smit: Relying on Force Majeure Clause in the Face of International Sanctions Home Latest updates News Paul Smit: Relying on Force Majeure Clause in the Face of International Sanctions 28 Jun 2022 Download Sign up for alerts Traditionally, anyone seeking to rely on a Force Majeure clause in their contract, would have to show that they exercised all reasonable endeavours to overcome the Force Majeure situation. It has now been decided that whilst a party has to reasonably endeavour to overcome and/or mitigate a Force Majeure event, they are required to do so within the sphere and boundaries set by the contract. This is the outcome to a dispute under recent appeal to the English Commercial Court in MUR Shipping BV v RTI Ltd [2022] EWHC 467 (Comm) . Facts The dispute arose out of a Contract of Affreightment (COA) concluded in 2016 between the relevant shipowners and their charterers for the carriage of bauxite between Guinea and Ukraine. Payment of freight due under the COA was to be made by the charterers in US Dollars. However in 2018, as a result of US OFAC sanctions imposed on the parent company of the charterers, the shipowners invoked the contract’s Force Majeure clause, which defined such an event as follows: "36.3 A Force Majeure Event is an event or state of affairs which meets all the following criteria: a) It is outside the immediate control of the Party giving the Force Majeure Notice; b) It prevents or delays the loading of the cargo at the loading port and/or the discharge of the cargo at the discharging port; c) It is caused by one or more of … any rules or regulations of governments or any interference or acts or directions of governments… restrictions on monetary transfers and exchanges; d) It cannot be overcome by reasonable endeavours from the Party affected ." The shipowners’ position was that as a result of the sanctions imposed, amongst other things, US Dollar freight payments as an express term of the COA would be delayed or