News

In the case of Ayhan Sezer v Agroinvest [2024] EWHC 479 (Comm), HHJ Pearce, sitting as a judge of the High Court in the London Circuit Commercial Court, had to grapple with the apparent tension between an obiter dictum of Lord Sumption in Bunge SA v Nidera [2015] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 469 and earlier decisions of the Courts setting out the approach to the identification of the date of default for the purposes of the GAFTA standard form default clause in the context of a claim for damages based on an anticipatory (and not actual) repudiatory breach of contract. This tension was well-known to international trade and commodities practitioners and the point under consideration had arisen in previous GAFTA disputes. The case, therefore, represents much needed judicial clarity on this important issue.