A company that owns maritime cables demanded compensation from an operator of a fishing vessel, after the vessel accidently tore a maritime cable in the EEZ area of the North Sea between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
The Court held that the vessel kept the “Good Seamanship” standard under the circumstances, hence it does not owe compensation under maritime liability. Under Dutch Law, as long as the cable is not stationary and is not under the seabed, there is no imposition to sail in a specific manner in order to avoid the cable, yet there is a need to uphold a higher standard of “Good Seamanship”. The more specific the danger, the higher the standard of “Good Seamanship” should be. In this case, as the maritime conditions were problematic and due to the fact that the cable was supposed to be under the seabed, the ship did not act in a manner that goes against “Good Seamanship”, and thus the operator is not liable for compensation.