A general average statement arrives with a creditor mass of eleven million euros. It includes the tow to the port of refuge, the discharge and reloading of four thousand containers, three months of crew wages, temporary repairs, bunkers burned alongside, the adjuster’s fees, and, tucked in among them, the cost of cleaning an oil slick and a payment made to shippers for late delivery. Of those eleven million, several hundred thousand euros have no business being there.
This page goes through what French law and the York-Antwerp Rules allow in general average, and what they exclude, item by item. It does not deal with how the account is drawn up, nor with how contribution is apportioned, which the other pages of the guide cover.
1. Three cumulative conditions, and not one fewer
Article L. 5133-3 of the French Transport Code defines general average as the extraordinary loss, damage and expenditure incurred for the common and pressing safety of the interests engaged in a maritime adventure, decided by the master. Three of those elements form the practical test.
Extraordinary first. What belongs to the normal performance of the voyage is not extraordinary, however expensive. Bunkers burned on a longer route, routine maintenance, a repair the owner owed to the seaworthiness of the vessel before sailing do not become extraordinary because a casualty made them visible. The question to put to each item is simple: would this expense have been incurred had the event not occurred.
Common safety next. The measure must benefit all the interests engaged, ship, freight and cargo, and not one of them alone. An operation carried out to preserve the vessel only, or to spare the owner a commercial delay, falls outside the scope. This is the most argued criterion in practice, because many measures benefit everyone while having been decided in the interest of one.
Urgency last, conveyed by the word pressing. The text presupposes a present peril, not a precaution taken at leisure. Expenditure incurred several weeks after the peril had ended, when the interests were already safe, no longer attaches to a general average act. Rule A of the York-Antwerp Rules says the same in other words, and the Rule Paramount adds that in no case shall there be any allowance for sacrifice or expenditure unless reasonably made or incurred. Reasonableness is not presumed. It is demonstrated, item by item.
2. Direct consequence, the dividing line between allowed and refused
Article L. 5133-4 confines allowance to loss of and damage to the property engaged in the adventure, and to expenditure incurred for that property, where they are the direct consequence of the general average act decided by the master. Two filters are laid on top of each other: the harm must be physical, and the link must be direct.
The physical filter rules out everything purely economic. Lost margin, a contractual penalty, the collapse of a supply contract, the loss of a listing with a distributor are real enough, but they are not physical harm to the property engaged.
The causation filter rules out knock-on consequences. Rule C of the York-Antwerp Rules is more explicit than the French text: only losses, damages or expenses which are the direct consequence of the general average act are allowed, and in no case is there any allowance for demurrage, loss of market, or any loss, damage or expense incurred by reason of delay, whether on the voyage or subsequently, or for any indirect loss whatsoever.
The same Rule C expressly excludes losses, damages or expenses incurred in respect of damage to the environment or in consequence of the escape or release of pollutant substances from the property involved in the common maritime adventure. That point has become central: on a modern casualty, containment, clean-up and treatment costs run into very large sums, and their appearance in a creditor mass is challengeable on that ground alone. The version incorporated into the contract, 1994, 2004 or 2016, must be identified before any discussion, because the environmental exclusions were tightened from one version to the next.
3. The port of refuge, the heaviest and most argued item
Deviation to a port of refuge is the most frequent general average measure and by far the most expensive. The York-Antwerp Rules devote two separate rules to it, and the way they interlock determines the fate of several items.
Rule X deals with the expenses at the port of refuge itself: the cost of entering the port where the vessel has put in following an accident, sacrifice or other extraordinary circumstances making the call necessary for the common safety, then the cost of handling on board or discharging cargo, fuel or stores, and finally the cost of storage, reloading and stowing.
Rule XI deals with the cost of staying: wages and maintenance of master, officers and crew, fuel and stores consumed, and port charges during the prolonged detention, in the cases where putting in is allowable under Rule X. The practical consequence matters: if entry into the port of refuge is not allowed, none of the detention costs are either. The argument therefore concentrates upstream, on whether the call was necessary for the common safety.
Three checks are called for on this item. The first is the date on which the peril ceased: expenditure after that moment belongs to normal trading, not to general average. The second is the cause of the prolonged stay: waiting because a yard chosen by the owner on price grounds was unavailable is not the same as a technically unavoidable wait. The third is the allocation of handling costs, often presented as a single figure although part of them corresponds to commercial operations unconnected with the casualty.
4. Temporary repairs and the deduction for age
Rule XIV allows in general average the cost of temporary repairs effected for the common safety, and of temporary repairs of accidental damage carried out at a port of loading, call or refuge to enable the adventure to be completed, up to the saving in expense that would otherwise have been incurred and allowed.
French law expresses the same capping logic in Article L. 5133-6: any additional expense voluntarily incurred to avoid an expense or loss that would have been classified as general average is allowed as such, but only up to the amount of the expense saved or the loss avoided. A substituted expense carried into the account at its full figure, without any demonstration of the saving achieved, is open to challenge in the very principle of its calculation, not merely in its quantum.
There is also a correction that cargo interests often forget to claim. Rule XIII governs deductions from the cost of repairs: where old material is replaced by new, no deduction for age is made if the vessel is fifteen years old or less, but a deduction of one third applies beyond that. On an older ship that deduction represents a substantial part of the creditor mass. Checking the age of the vessel, which is public information, is one of the most profitable operations in the whole review of an account.
On the French side, Article L. 5133-9 sets the method for valuing damage to the vessel: the amount allowed is determined at the port where the adventure ends, and equals the cost of repairs, the actual cost where they have been carried out, the estimated cost where they have not. A quotation is not an invoice, and a quotation produced by a yard connected to the owner calls for a second opinion.
5. Salvage, and what the contribution actually covers
Salvage remuneration almost always heads the creditor mass. Rule VI allows it in general average where the salvage operations were undertaken for the purpose of preserving from peril the property involved in the common maritime adventure, including where they were the subject of a separate contract, on the conditions it lists.
The same rule excludes the special compensation payable to the salvor for environmental protection, known in practice under the SCOPIC clause. The distinction is decisive and frequently misapplied. A global salvage invoice, not broken down between salvage remuneration proper and special compensation, cannot be carried into the account as it stands: asking for that breakdown is the first reflex on this item.
One point of articulation is worth flagging. Where salvage remuneration has already been apportioned between the salved interests under the international salvage convention, carrying it into the creditor mass in full would make the same interests pay twice. The York-Antwerp Rules provide for that adjustment, and its absence from an account shows up in a simple indicator: the same sums appear on both sides with no offset.
Finally, Article L. 5133-5 recalls that fault committed by one of the parties to the adventure does not prevent the general average adjustment, subject to recourse against the party at fault. Rule D is to the same effect. Salvage made necessary by a navigational fault or by unseaworthiness therefore enters the mass, but it opens a separate recourse, governed by its own time limits.
6. The cargo the statute excludes
Some cargo is treated separately, and the mechanism is always the same: it contributes if saved, but its loss is not allowed. The asymmetry is deliberate, and it sanctions a documentary or declaratory failure.
Article L. 5133-12 covers first the goods for which no bill of lading or master’s receipt was issued: they are not allowed in general average if lost, and they contribute nevertheless if saved. The same regime applies to deck cargo, save in short sea trade where it is treated as under deck cargo.
Article L. 5133-13 goes further where deck cargo irregularly stowed within the meaning of Article L. 5422-7 is jettisoned: the value of the goods thrown overboard is not allowed in general average. Rule I of the York-Antwerp Rules expresses the same idea by making allowance for jettison conditional on the cargo being carried in accordance with the recognised custom of the trade.
Article L. 5133-11 deals with under-declaration: goods declared at less than their real value contribute in proportion to the real value, but their loss or damage is allowed only in proportion to the declared value. Rule XIX of the York-Antwerp Rules reaches exactly the same result. Under-declaring to save on freight therefore costs twice over in a casualty, once on the contribution called for and once on the indemnity refused. Article L. 5133-14 governs the property and baggage of crew and passengers for which no bill of lading or equivalent document exists, on a comparable logic.
7. The items that never belong in the account
An efficient review starts with a short inventory of items that, whichever version of the rules applies, have no place in the creditor mass. Looking for them systematically saves time.
Demurrage and detention come first, excluded by name in Rule C. Loss of market and any loss connected with delay follow, excluded by the same text. Pollution and environmental costs are excluded by that rule too. Payments made by the carrier to shippers under its own contractual liability are not general average expenditure, they are consequences of its own liability, whose fate is settled through the recourse preserved by Article L. 5133-5.
One particular case deserves mention, because it is sometimes wrongly refused. Rule XX allows in general average the capital loss suffered by the owners of goods sold in order to raise funds to meet general average disbursements, together with the cost of insuring those disbursements. That item is legitimate, provided the sale genuinely had that purpose.
Finally, there is the situation that brings the whole exercise down. Article L. 5133-16 states that there is no adjustment at all where the interests engaged in the adventure have been totally lost. Where nothing was saved, the very logic of apportionment disappears, and contribution demands still issued in those circumstances have no basis.
The firm has prepared a practical guide setting out, item by item, the checklist for reviewing a creditor mass, with the allocation table between salvage remuneration, special compensation and SCOPIC. It is available on the page Download the General Average guide. How the firm works on these files is set out on the page general average lawyer, and the wider practice on the page maritime law.
Frequently asked questions
Are pollution clean-up costs allowed in general average?
No. Rule C of the York-Antwerp Rules expressly excludes losses, damages and expenses incurred in respect of damage to the environment or in consequence of the escape or release of pollutant substances from the property involved in the common maritime adventure. Those costs are dealt with through the pollution liability regimes and the compensation funds, not through cargo contribution. Their presence in a creditor mass is one of the most frequent anomalies, and one of the easiest to establish.
Can my late delivery be compensated through general average?
No. Delay and its consequences are excluded by Rule C, whether they occur on the voyage or subsequently, and French law reaches the same result through Article L. 5133-4, which confines allowance to physical harm to the property engaged. A delay claim may lie against the carrier, an action barred after one year under Article L. 5422-18, but it has no place in the general average adjustment.
The vessel is more than fifteen years old, does that change the account?
Yes, sometimes substantially. Rule XIII provides that where old material is replaced by new, no deduction for age applies if the vessel is fifteen years old or less, but a deduction of one third applies beyond that. On an account dominated by repairs the difference adds up quickly. The age of the vessel is public information, and checking it should be among the first steps in reviewing an account.
My cargo was carried on deck, am I still called on to contribute?
Yes if it was saved. Article L. 5133-12 excludes deck cargo from allowance where it is lost, but makes it contribute where it is saved, save in short sea trade where it follows the regime of under deck cargo. The asymmetry is unfavourable to the shipper, which makes it all the more useful to check whether the stowage was regular within the meaning of Article L. 5422-7, a question that governs the fate of jettisoned goods.
How do I know which version of the York-Antwerp Rules applies?
From the general average clause in the bill of lading or charterparty, which names the version incorporated, usually 1994, 2004 or 2016. Reading it is essential before any discussion, because the environmental exclusions and the interest regime differ from one version to the next. Note also that the 2016 version was the subject of a technical amendment to Rule XXI on interest, adopted by the Comite Maritime International in October 2022.
On the same guide, on the account itself: General average contribution, security and adjustment. On releasing the cargo: Average bond and average guarantee. On apportionment and recourse: General average and liability, who contributes and who to pursue.