Shipping

There was no rule of law that piratical seizure of a vessel was automatically an actual total loss (ATL). The correct approach was to “wait and see”.  Piratical seizure where there was not only a chance, but a strong likelihood that payment of a comparatively small sum relative to the value of the vessel and her cargo as ransom, would secure its recovery, was not an ATL. It was not an irretrievable deprivation of property. It was a typical “wait and see” situation. The facts would not have supported a claim for ATL, for the test was unlikelihood of recovery. Further, there was no general rule that capture of seizure was an ATL. It might, in the absence of a policy of ransom amount to an ATL, where the pirates escaped with their prize and there was no prospect whatever of finding or recovering vessel or cargo, but where a chance of recapture remains even such a seizure would not give rise