Plantation A Legal Thriller

by J M S Macfarlane

  Chapter 46

  On the second day of the hearing, Richard Garrick told the judge “My Lord, we will call Mr Stuart Grant, the marine insurance broker for City First Europe.”

  At the sound of his name and a gesture from Garrick, Grant left the back of the court to take the witness stand. Swearing on the Bible to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, he went through the preliminaries of who he was and that he really was who he said he was because of his experience as a broker gained in this, that and the other broking firms in London.

  After going over all of what had been covered the previous day by Ransome who was exhibiting signs of boredom with the entire affair (it being a foregone conclusion to him about who would win), Garrick took Grant through each of the main contract documents. He then said on oath that they were genuine and that the contract had been negotiated and agreed as described in the court papers.

  “Thank you, Mr Grant. That is all that I wanted to ask you. Please wait there as my friend may have some questions for you.”

  While the cordial geniality of rival advocates often masks their hostility for each other, ‘friend’ Riordan rose to his feet and assumed his usual stance. His style of examination was mostly respectful but could be intimidatory and scornful if he was getting nowhere with a witness.

  “Mr Grant, I’d like to explore how you negotiated the contract with Stirling Insurance. Could you tell us about that, please ?”

  The previous day, Grant had decided that if he was to be cross-examined by Plantation’s lawyers, he would be as unco-operative as possible but without being hostile. He looked at Riordan suspiciously as if his interrogator was wasting time asking pointless questions.

  “Well,” said Grant, appearing slightly offended, “I saw Mr Elefthriou in Athens and went through the type of cover he wanted for the Captain Stratos – a hull and machinery policy. The crew and the cargo were separately insured elsewhere, so I didn’t need to worry about that. After that, he gave me all the information I needed – in three categories – technical, historical and commercial and then I put it all together for an underwriter so that they could see what type of risk it was.”

  “And did you approach any local Greek insurers ?”

  “No. Mr Elefthriou wanted the best security we could find. London offers the most competitive marine cover.”

  “Of course. So you went to London. And what was the reaction of the underwriters who saw it ?”

  “Well, at first, it took some time to find anyone who would look at it.”

  “How long ?”

  “A week or two.”

  “Really ? And why was that ?”

  “I honestly can’t say.”

  “Could it have been anything to do with the ship itself ?”

  “No, it was in A1 LRE condition – it had been surveyed by the LRE agent in Athens and passed A1. From recollection, it had been re-fitted a few months earlier.”

  “Well, if it wasn’t the ship, could it have been the shipping line ?”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Might there have been something in the history of Hellas Global ? Something which made the underwriters in London wary about it ? Something they may have recalled from the past. Perhaps Hellas Global had a bad claims history during the previous ten years. Could that have been the case to your knowledge ?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. I can’t think what would have worried them. Hellas Global’s claims record was good.”

  Ransome whispered in Garrick’s ear and then quickly rose to his feet.

  “My Lord, if my friend is alleging that Hellas Global have previously been involved in numerous claims or some type of nefarious conduct, he should come out and say it, rather than making inferences which are unfounded. Plantation hasn’t mentioned anything about this in its defence.”

  “Mr Riordan ? Where is all this leading ?” enquired the judge.

  Riordan appeared unabashed. “My Lord, I’m merely trying to get at the reasons why the marine underwriters in London should have been reticent to offer Hellas Global the type of cover it was seeking. There are no documents about the company’s prior claims history so we are somewhat adrift about that – much as I imagine the underwriters were.”

  The judge asked Ransome whether that information was available and after being told that it could be extracted from Hellas’s old files in Athens, Riordan was asked to progress his questioning of Grant.

  “We’d reached the position, Mr Grant where you were telling us why all of the marine underwriters in the LRE were uninterested in writing a policy for Hellas Global.”

  Grant was standing upright in the box, looking from the judge across to Thanakis, then at Garrick and then back to the judge.

  “Well, Mr Grant ?”

  After the passage of around ten seconds which seemed like an hour, Grant eventually said “I wouldn’t say that ‘all’ the marine underwriters in the LRE weren’t interested. Some were but then they turned it down.”

  “Do you know why they rejected it ?”

  “No, they didn’t say. The ‘Cube’ at the Exchange is a busy place with people in queues, waiting to see each underwriter. No-one has the time to go into all the reasons why a particular risk is in or out. Sometimes an underwriter will ask for further information and sometimes they won’t.”

  “Would they have been concerned about the crew or the ship’s master ?” Riordan briefly removed his wig and gave his scalp a vigorous rub. The top of his head was red and itchy and what remained of his hair was damp.

  “I don’t see why they should have been.”

  “What did you know, for example, about the master ?”

  “I knew that he was an extremely capable mariner – he had to be, to command a ship like the Captain Stratos.”

  “Do you recall any specific details about him ?”

  “No.”

  “Did you know that in 1979 – around four years ago – it was alleged that he’d scuttled his own ship – the Aegean Star ?”

  “No, I certainly did not know that.”

  “No-one mentioned anything to you about it ?”

  “Of course not.”

  “How is it, do you think, that such an important fact about the Captain was unknown to Hellas Global ?”

  “I really can’t say – but Mr Elefthriou certainly didn’t mention anything about it to me.”

  “In your professional opinion, as a broker, could the omission of such crucial information invalidate the policy ?”

  Garrick by this time had launched out of his seat. “My Lord, once again nothing about this has been previously raised by Plantation in its defence. Nothing was ever proved against the master in relation to the Aegean Star and it is patently irrelevant to what happened to the Captain Stratos – unless my friend is saying that the Captain Stratos was sunk by its own Captain who killed himself and all of his crew in a deliberate act of wilful self-murder.”

  “Mr Riordan, you are straying into areas which have nothing to do with Plantation’s defence. I will not warn you again,” said the judge while preferring to steer clear for the moment about anything which the master might or might not have done.

  “To sum up then,” said Riordan, “we have a situation where every marine underwriter at the LRE refused to cover Hellas Global and you’re unable to tell us why they did that.”

  “There may have been lots of different reasons but none which were explained to me.”

  “So, Hellas Global were in a spot and couldn’t get the insurance they needed to stay in business. The contract you were trying to place was crucial for them – without it, no freight forwarder, stevedore or charterer would touch them. There must been a lot of pressure on you, Mr Grant. What did you do then ?”

  “At first, I was unsure whether to try the US market. But after speaking to some colleagues, they told me about Stirling – it was a new insurer which had only recently started up in business.”

  “Was Stirling the type of company you wo
uld normally have approached ?”

  “No, it wasn’t but their security looked adequate at B+ and they wanted to take on new business.”

  “Just stopping there for a moment – when the contract was agreed with Stirling, were you aware that they didn’t usually offer marine cover ?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “And in fact, they hadn’t underwritten any marine insurance at all, prior to this particular contract for Hellas Global. This was the very first marine policy they wrote. Did you know that ?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And didn’t it strike you as rather unusual that they were complete novices in the field of marine insurance which as I understand it, is a rather specialised market, confined to around fifteen principal underwriters ?”

  “No, it did not.”

  “And pray, why was that ?”

  “In the London market, companies come and go all the time. Some survive for a very long time with disciplined underwriting. Others are less disciplined and fall by the wayside very quickly if they take on too much risk. New insurers come in who are more competitive and can fill the gaps.”

  “In your estimation, did Stirling fall within the latter category ?”

  “Yes, it did. They were a new company looking for business and if they didn’t normally write marine cover, well, they were just starting to develop a market. There are plenty of companies who dabble in the marine market or where it intersects with non-marine risks and for that reason, the policy with Stirling for the Captain Stratos wasn’t unusual. Stirling were authorised to underwrite marine, non-marine and aviation insurance and I didn’t question their ability to do so.”

  “Can you tell me how the contract came to be agreed between you and Stirling’s underwriter, Mr Black ?”

  “I rang him to see him at his office. He said he was looking for new business from brokers and would be delighted to meet me – from what I could tell, he wasn’t getting many brokers coming to see him. He invited me to lunch at a restaurant in Belgravia and I gave him the contract information to look over. At the end of lunch, he suggested a figure for the premium and we talked it over.”

  “The amount which Mr Black suggested for the premium – did it sound reasonable ?”

  “His first quotation was extremely high – I would say it was totally unrealistic and there was no way Hellas Global would pay it.”

  “How did you end up reaching agreement ?”

  “I told him there was a premium rate which we would not go above and Nigel went along with it.”

  “And what was that rate based on exactly ?”

  “Nothing more than what Hellas Global had paid in previous years, its turnover, profit, number of employees and so on.”

  “And so you more or less agreed the premium between you. Did Mr Black get an opportunity to read the paperwork at all ?”

  “He flipped through it over lunch and said he’d look at it more closely later on.”

  “How long did your lunch last ?”

  “Oh, from around one to four in the afternoon.”

  “And during this time you were drinking ?”

  “Naturally. Don’t you have a glass of something when you go to a restaurant ?”

  Everyone in the seating at the back of the court laughed quietly to themselves as they imagined Riordan getting sloshed at some gastronomic establishment in the West End. The object of their amusement turned around to face them with an ironic grin.

  “I generally avoid alcohol when discussing business – and certainly not when it’s worth as much as twenty million pounds. At any rate, it was a long, boozy lunch – nothing out of the ordinary, perhaps ?”

  “Not at all.”

  “And did you continue on anywhere after lunch ?”

  “Yes, we went to one or two pubs and then had dinner at another restaurant in Chelsea and went to a pub afterwards.”

  “So, by the end of it, you’d gotten to know Mr Black quite well including everything about his company and you were quite content, as Hellas Global’s agent that Stirling was the right type of insurer for them ?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “One final point, Mr Grant. Did City First or Hellas Global receive any request from Plantation to investigate the sinking of the Captain Stratos ?”

  “Yes, we both did.”

  “And you’re familiar with the section of the policy, I take it, which requires the insured to co-operate with the insurer to investigate how the loss happened ?”

  “I am.”

  “Did either Hellas Global or you as their agent agree to assist Plantation to discover how the ship sank and what became of it ?”

  “The Captain Stratos went down in over a thousand feet of water which made it almost impossible to find the wreck and survey it. Mr Elefthriou and I decided that as we couldn’t examine the wreck ourselves to find out why the ship sank, there was nothing to co-operate about.”

  “And Hellas Global and you are certain that nothing could have been done to locate the wreck and survey it.”

  “We are both certain of that.”

  “Not even if there had been some further time to organise a search party and pinpoint the location of the wreck.”

  “It would have been a pointless exercise.”

  “Therefore, nothing was done by Hellas Global or you to locate the wreck or any survivors or cargo during the past two years.”

  “No, nothing at all.”

  “And to your definite knowledge, there has been no evidence come to light of either the ship or what remains of it, the crew, the Captain and cargo – no trace has ever been found of any of them ever again ?”

  “Is that a serious question ? Do you think that all of them have risen from the dead or that we’ve been making it up ? ”

  “I’m not interested in supposition, Mr Grant. What is your answer ?”

  “Of course not, it goes without saying. None of them have been seen again – none of them. We wouldn’t be here today if they had, would we ?”

  “And what you have stated on oath is also the position of your client, Hellas Global ? I can see Mr Elefthriou nodding his head in agreement.”

  “Absolutely. What I have said applies in the same way to Hellas Global.”

  “Thank you, Mr Grant. I have no further questions.”

  Later that afternoon in the City Final editions of the London Evening News, the business section carried the by-line “Insurance Con – Plantation Says Owner Scuttled Ship”. Ashby was also reported to have met the ship’s Captain who was supposed to have been dead.

  When Roger Grenville saw the article, he showed it to Black. “Things couldn’t be going better, could they ? If I was Hellas Global, I’d be hopping mad about it.”

  As Ashby came out of the court at the end of the day, a writ for defamation was handed personally to him. It had been issued earlier in the afternoon by Elefthriou and Grant and was claiming an unspecified amount for the damage to their personal reputations and that of their companies.

  “As expected,” said Riordan.