ON December 19, 2024, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) dismissed an application for special leave to appeal a decision in Admiralty by the Court of Appeal of Guyana in Andy Duke (the applicant) v The Ship “MT Tradewind Passion” (the respondent).
The reasons for the court’s decision were issued on January 20, 2025. The applicant, Andy Duke, who was injured while working on the docks into which the respondent ship collided, had obtained a warrant of arrest for the vessel. Following the execution of the warrant, the respondent obtained the vessel’s release by providing security in the form of a letter of undertaking.  The High Court ordered the vessel’s release on bail upon lodging the letter of undertaking. The applicant appealed this decision to the Full Court which was dismissed.

The applicant then sought leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal but leave to appeal was refused, with the court noting that the Guyana Shipping Act provided for the acceptance of security for release of the ship by way of letter of undertaking.
On the hearing of an application for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal, that court refused to grant leave to appeal finding no merit in the arguments to challenge the High Court’s decision to accept a letter of undertaking as security for the release of the ship. Thereafter, the applicant sought special leave to appeal to the CCJ. The application was dismissed.

The CCJ emphasised that it would only intervene in cases where the Court of Appeal has refused to grant leave to appeal itself when the decision results in a gross miscarriage of justice.
In this instance, the CCJ found no potential miscarriage of justice or egregious error of law warranting its intervention, as the proposed appeal was academic; the application was non-compliant with the Caribbean Court of Justice (Appellate Jurisdiction) Rules 2024, and the applicant intended to argue issues that were irrelevant to the application.

The matter was determined by CCJ Justices Winston Anderson, Denys Barrow, and Andrew Burgess. Jamela Ali, SC, along with attorneys Sanjeev Datadin, Ganesh Hira and Samuel Glasgow appeared for the applicant. Attorney Kamal Ramkarran represented the respondent.
At approximately 02:00h on October 8, 2022, MT Tradewind Passion, a vessel transporting fuel for the Guyana Oil Company (GuyOil) heading south, collided with the Demerara Harbour Bridge, despite repeated warnings to “drop anchor” from Shift Supervisor, Andy Duke.

Stationed in a lookout tower, Duke made frantic efforts to communicate with the vessel’s pilot but received no response. In a desperate bid to save his life, he jumped from the booth, sustaining a fractured leg that required hospitalisation. Meanwhile, other workers at the base of the bridge narrowly escaped injury by fleeing the area. The collision left the bridge inoperable for over two days, causing significant disruption. The Demerara Harbour Bridge Corporation (DHBC) later filed a lawsuit against the vessel’s owner, seeking more than $1 billion in damages. The vessel is owned by Canama Trading S De RL, a Panamanian-registered company. In its Statement of Claim (SoC) submitted to the Demerara High Court, the DHBC reported damages exceeding $1 billion and stated that despite repeated oral requests, no compensation has been provided to date.