Held, appeal dismissed. (1) Clause 1 of the American Institute Hull War Risks and Strikes Clauses (1977) was to be interpreted on its own terms, having regard to the language used in the clause and taking account of the commercial background, where that background included the fact that the clause formed part of a widely used form which had to be applied to vessels trading worldwide, and needed to be interpreted as it would be understood by commercial people in the shipping and marine insurance industry. The term “customs regulations” in exclusion 1(e) fell to interpreted in the same way as the same words in clause 4.1.5 in the parallel English version of the clauses had been interpreted. Giving those words a businesslike interpretation, they referred to laws, however classified under domestic law, which regulated the import of goods into the territory of the state concerned, either by prohibiting such imports or by imposing a liability to make payment as a condition of importation. In determining the meaning of the words “quarantine regulations” in either the American or the English versions of the clause the same approach had to be adopted, interpreting the words as they would be understood by business people, without regard to the niceties of local law. Applying that approach, the quarantine regulations were laws concerned with the protection of health, whether of people or animals. The “and similar” wording in exclusion 1(e) was to be construed by reference to customs or quarantine regulations and referred to detention under regulations which had a similar purpose to regulations concerning the import of goods or the protection of health. That was a less demanding connection than was required by the judge’s interpretation. In the present case the detention of the vessel occurred because the Indonesian government decided to assert its sovereignty over its territorial waters by arresting and detaining vessels which had anchored without permission. That had no relevant similarity to an arrest or detention under customs or quarantine regulations, being completely unconnected with the import of goods or with health. It followed that the judge had been right to conclude that the claim in the present case did not fall within the exclusion (paras 39, 41–42, 50–52–53, 56, 58–62, 115, 116, 117).

(2) Identification of the individuals who comprised “senior management” of the claimant company, for the purposes of section 4(3) of the Insurance Act 2015, as defined by section 4(8)(c) of that Act, and who were capable of having actual or constructive knowledge of the material to be disclosed to the insurer under the duty of fair presentation of risk under section 3 of the 2015 Act, was a question of fact, requiring an evaluation of the significance of the roles played by various individuals in the making of decisions about how the insured’s activities were to be managed or organised and all the circumstances. The court should not interfere with that kind of evaluative assessment unless it was clear that the trial judge had gone wrong. The judge was correct to find that while one would normally expect a director to be part of a company’s senior management, because in the ordinary course of events a director would satisfy the statutory definition, there was no hard and fast rule to that effect, including in cases involving a sole director with no employees. The categories of persons comprising senior management were likely to include members of the board of directors but could extend beyond that, depending on the structure and management arrangements of the insured. Those categories were expected to be construed relatively narrowly, but were capable of being applied flexibly. In reality, the first claimant’s director was contractually obliged to act and did act only on the instructions of others, exercised no independent judgment and made no decisions. The use of special purpose vehicles with nominee directors was a common arrangement in the shipping industry and in any transaction involving the claimant, the participants would have regarded themselves as dealing with the controlling companies rather than focusing on the specific company or its directors. The director played no role at all, let alone a significant one, in the making of decisions about how the activities of the claimant were to be managed. He did not come within the definition of “senior management” and it was not enough that he was merely involved in such activities. The judge was entitled to find that duty of to make reasonable enquiries did not, in the circumstances, require the director to be asked whether he knew of any circumstances which might affect the risk. Although the question of what was required by a reasonable search must be answered objectively, it was relevant that there was no evidence that such a question, whether a direct question about a nominee director’s own position or a more general question concerning knowledge of circumstances which might affect the risk, was asked routinely or at all by other Greek shipping groups using nominee directors, despite the fact that such a corporate structure was common. Accordingly, the claimants did not have actual or constructive knowledge of the criminal charges (paras 70, 79–81, 90–94, 97, 100, 102, 115, 116, 117).