Cancelling a Voyage Charter Before Sailing in Turkey: The 30% Rule, Missing Cargo and Freight Claims
Thirty percent of freight is not a universal fixed cancellation penalty for every shipping booking. Article 1158 of the Turkish Commercial Code addresses cancellation of a voyage charter before the vessel has completed the contractual loading and departed. It permits the carrier to claim lost profit and accrued claims, treats thirty percent of the agreed total freight as lost profit in case of doubt, and requires deduction of specified replacement earnings. Articles 1159 and 1160 separately regulate loading which never begins and loading which remains incomplete.
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This guide addresses overseas charterers, traders and carriers in Turkey-linked transactions. It does not treat cancellation of a sales order, a container booking and a voyage charter as automatically the same event. The principal provisions are Turkish Commercial Code No. 6102, Articles 1158–1160. The Ministry of Justice also publishes the statutory wording on PDF pages 229–230. The contract’s nature, applicable law, parties and performance stage determine which rule applies.
1. Distinguish cancellation, failure to load and incomplete loading
The carriage-contracting party’s decision to cancel under Article 1158 is one event. The carrier’s response when loading has not begun after the required waiting periods expire is another. A partly loaded vessel at the end of those periods presents the separate choices in Article 1160. An invoice labelled cancellation fee does not establish which event occurred.
Prepare a chronology showing the accepted contract, readiness notice, loading period, any agreed demurrage period, actual cargo movements and the instruction relied upon. Cargo unavailability alone does not establish every timing and communication condition of the remedy claimed. Nor does an invoice issued after departure prove that termination occurred beforehand.
The seller, booking intermediary, carriage-contracting party and consignee can be different legal persons. A sales cancellation does not automatically terminate a freight agreement concluded by another company. Establish the representative’s authority before treating a logistics message as an instruction binding the contractual party.
2. Identify the pre-sailing right under Article 1158
Article 1158(1) allows the carriage-contracting party to terminate the voyage charter until the vessel has completed loading under that contract and set out on the voyage. Both the actual stage of performance and the agreement concerned must be identified. Deleting a booking from an internal system is not itself a complete legal account of termination.
Keep the fixture, charterparty, riders, acceptance and amendments together. The cancellation communication should be read against that complete agreement. A request to postpone loading, substitute goods or negotiate release should not automatically be described as a final termination without examining its meaning and the response.
Distinguish the statutory route from an express cancellation clause or a separate allegation of the carrier’s breach. Different grounds can produce different questions. The claim should state which ground is relied upon, when it arose and which obligations are said to have ended, rather than shifting between inconsistent descriptions.
3. The thirty-percent provision measures lost profit in case of doubt
Article 1158(2) permits the carrier to claim profit lost because of termination together with claims accrued up to that time. It then treats thirty percent of the agreed total freight as lost profit in case of doubt. Omitting that qualification turns an evidential measure into a supposed fixed penalty which the paragraph does not prescribe.
Identify the agreed total freight and the basis of the proposed profit calculation. Where the calculation relies on the statutory percentage, explain why that measure is being used. Where another amount is asserted, disclose the supporting calculation and evidence rather than substituting an unexplained percentage or the entire gross revenue.
Accrued claims remain distinct from the lost-profit component. The account should identify each charge and the period or service to which it relates. Adding all freight, a thirty-percent amount, waiting costs and miscellaneous losses without explaining their separate bases can conceal recovery of the same economic loss more than once.
4. Replacement earnings must appear in the account
The final sentence of Article 1158(2) requires deduction of earnings obtained through new freight contracts during the time needed to perform the terminated contract. The original performance period and replacement earnings are therefore necessary elements of the statutory calculation, not optional information to be ignored when inconvenient.
Identify the relevant period using the cancelled voyage arrangement and the available performance evidence. Then identify the new carriage actually undertaken during that period. Employment of the vessel at another time does not automatically answer the question, while relevant earnings do not cease to matter because they carry another booking reference.
Keep actual earnings separate from a forecast of possible future business. A transparent schedule shows the initial lost-profit amount, the replacement earnings falling within the provision and the resulting balance. Supporting contracts and financial records should permit the deduction to be checked without exposing unrelated commercial material unnecessarily.
5. Removal of goods already loaded has its own consequences
Article 1158(3) addresses exercise of the termination right after goods have been taken aboard. The carrier must wait for the time needed to unload them. That time is not counted as loading laytime or demurrage time. The paragraph separately regulates the expenses and losses caused by removal.
The carrier can claim those expenses and losses, and the loss cannot be less than the demurrage charge corresponding to the time lost. This statutory minimum should not be confused with an assertion that the original demurrage clock simply continues unchanged. The legal basis and calculation must be identified separately.
Preserve the removal instruction, actual unloading period, handling records and cost evidence. Meeting a financial release condition does not establish who may receive the goods under a bill of lading. The cargo-release and original-bill guide addresses that separate documentary entitlement.
Shared-vessel qualification: Article 1162 adds a separate restriction where independent voyage charters have been made with several carriage-contracting parties for specified parts or spaces of the vessel. If unloading the goods in an Article 1158 situation could delay the voyage or require transshipment, the cancelling party cannot demand unloading without the consent of all the other carriage-contracting parties. The financial consequences of cancellation and the right to demand physical unloading must therefore be assessed separately. Check the other charters, the proposed unloading operation and the required consents before presenting removal as unconditional.
6. Several contracted voyages require a defined cancellation scope
Article 1158(4) allows the termination right, where the contract provides for several voyages, to be exercised separately for each voyage not yet begun or together for all such voyages. Identify which remaining obligations the notice concerns. A message about one loading operation is not automatically cancellation of the entire programme.
Keep the voyage schedule and amendments with the termination record. The status of each voyage should be supported by actual performance information. A voyage already underway and an uncommenced voyage should not be placed in the same cancellation category without a separate legal basis.
The financial account must follow the scope of the notice. Distinguish accrued amounts, lost-profit calculations and replacement earnings for the obligations actually affected. This prevents a disputed cancellation account from absorbing unrelated sums for voyages which continued or were completed.
7. Loading which never begins engages Article 1159
Article 1159 applies where loading time and any agreed demurrage time have ended but loading has not begun. The carrier may treat the contract as terminated or continue waiting. The expiry of the relevant periods must be established before either position is presented as a remedy under that article.
The notice-of-readiness and loading-time guide explains the preceding timetable. Vessel arrival alone does not show that all required waiting has elapsed. Reconcile receipt of the readiness notice, allowed time, interruptions and any agreed additional period with the carrier’s election.
If the carrier continues waiting, Article 1159(3) permits recovery of the whole loss caused by that additional waiting from the carriage-contracting party. Identify that period and the loss attributed to it. A continued-waiting claim should not duplicate amounts already charged for an earlier period.
8. The carrier’s termination position requires written notice
Article 1159(2) requires the carrier, at the end of the period for which it must wait, to notify the carriage-contracting party in writing in order to treat the contract as terminated and claim compensation under Article 1158(2). Fax, email and similar technical means are expressly contemplated.
Retain the notice, recipient and transmission evidence. An earlier reminder to make cargo available is not necessarily a communication exercising the statutory termination position. Examine what the notice says and when it was given, rather than relying only on its heading or an internal claim-system entry.
The notice serves a different function from the initial readiness notice. Likewise, the fact that an agreed demurrage period starts without a second readiness notice does not remove the written-notice condition for this termination remedy. Each communication should be connected to the requirement it is intended to satisfy.
9. Incomplete loading does not require indefinite waiting
Article 1160(1) states that, after loading time and any agreed demurrage time have ended, the carrier need not wait further for loading to be completed. If it continues waiting on the carriage-contracting party’s instruction, it may seek its expenses and losses for that period. The instruction and additional waiting must be evidenced.
Under Article 1160(2), after those periods expire, the carrier must depart at the carriage-contracting party’s request even though all agreed goods have not been loaded. The paragraph then specifies the carrier’s resulting financial and security rights. A request to sail does not itself settle the financial consequences of missing cargo.
Record quantities loaded and omitted against the agreed freight arrangement. A simple percentage of missing cargo is not necessarily the full statutory calculation. Distinguish the freight entitlement, accrued demurrage, additional expenses and losses, and the stated basis for any further security.
10. Departure with missing cargo has an express freight deduction
Article 1160(2) allows the carrier to claim the whole agreed freight, accrued demurrage, expenses and losses caused by incomplete loading, and security where the short loading leaves its claims wholly or partly unsecured. The paragraph also requires deduction from the freight claim of freight for substitute goods carried under another contract in place of the unloaded part.
This replacement-freight deduction differs from the lost-profit and replacement-earnings calculation in Article 1158. The account must identify whether the charter was terminated or the voyage proceeded with incomplete cargo. It should not move between those formulas without explaining the event which makes the chosen provision applicable.
Connect substitute goods and their freight to the capacity left by the omitted cargo. Keep the freight deduction distinct from independently supported expenses or losses. The commercial label dead freight does not eliminate the statutory deduction or supply proof of every component of the demand.
11. No instruction after incomplete loading requires a further process
Article 1160(3) addresses expiry of the relevant waiting periods where loading remains incomplete and no instruction under the preceding paragraphs has been given. The carrier may send written notice requiring instructions within a specified period. If none is given by its end, the carrier may treat the contract as terminated and exercise the rights arising under Article 1158.
The provision does not state one fixed number of days for that instruction period. Retain the actual notice, the period set and the communication history. Do not invent a statutory grace period or assume that an unspecified request to respond soon necessarily establishes every requirement.
Assess a response according to its content, timing and authority. Instructions to wait or sail and a proposal merely to discuss cancellation are different communications. The sequence matters because it determines whether the carrier invokes continued performance, continued waiting or termination.
12. Present a claim schedule which can be checked
The schedule should identify the contractual route first, followed by the associated monetary items and deductions. Support the freight amount with the accepted terms; accrued charges with their contractual or statutory basis; and removal or waiting loss with records connecting the expense to the relevant event.
| Event | Essential evidence | Provision |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-sailing cancellation | Accepted charter, performance stage and termination record | Article 1158(1) |
| Lost profit | Total freight, calculation and replacement earnings | Article 1158(2) |
| Removal after loading | Actual unloading period, expenses and losses | Article 1158(3) |
| Loading never starts | Expired waiting periods and written election | Article 1159 |
| Departure with incomplete cargo | Instruction, quantities, substitute freight and security basis | Article 1160(2) |
| No instruction received | Written request, stated period and response history | Article 1160(3) |
The carrier-identity guide addresses a separate party issue. An operational agent’s involvement does not automatically make that agent the creditor or debtor. Identify the proper party before sending a payment demand or settlement document.
A proposed settlement must distinguish payment, cargo removal and release of claims. The applicable forum, limitation rule and procedural prerequisites require review for the actual charter claim; a deadline from a different cargo-damage dispute should not automatically be copied. Overseas instructions should include the complete fixture, notices, chronology and itemised account through a confidential channel.
Frequently asked questions
Is thirty percent always a fixed cancellation penalty?
No. Article 1158(2) uses thirty percent of agreed total freight as lost profit in case of doubt. Accrued claims and the required replacement-earnings deduction must also be assessed.
When does the Article 1158 cancellation right apply?
It concerns cancellation by the carriage-contracting party before the vessel has completed contractual loading and departed. Identify the actual voyage-charter arrangement and performance stage.
Must replacement earnings be deducted?
Article 1158(2) requires deduction of the specified earnings from new freight contracts during the time needed to perform the terminated contract.
Does removal after cancellation count as ordinary demurrage time?
Article 1158(3) excludes that unloading time from loading laytime and demurrage time, while separately allowing expenses and losses subject to its stated minimum-loss rule.
Can a multi-voyage contract be cancelled only for uncommenced voyages?
Article 1158(4) permits the right to be exercised separately for each voyage not yet begun or together for all such voyages. Define the scope of the notice.
Can the carrier terminate immediately whenever cargo is unavailable?
Article 1159 requires expiry of loading time and any agreed demurrage time without loading having begun, together with its written-notice requirement for the termination remedy.
Can the required carrier notice be sent by email?
Article 1159(2) expressly contemplates email, fax and similar technical means for the written notice. Its content, recipient and timing still need to satisfy the provision.
Must the vessel wait indefinitely for the missing part of the cargo?
No. Article 1160 distinguishes further waiting on instruction, departure on request and the process for obtaining instructions after the relevant waiting periods expire.
Does substitute cargo affect the freight demand after incomplete loading?
Yes. Article 1160(2) requires the specified substitute-cargo freight to be deducted from the freight claim. Keep that deduction separate from other supported items.
Does Article 1160 prescribe a universal instruction-response period?
No fixed number of days appears in paragraph 3. Examine the written notice, the period actually specified and the response history.
Primary sources and legal scope
Ministry of Justice legislation record: Turkish Commercial Code No. 6102; Ministry-hosted statutory reproduction, Articles 1158–1160, PDF pages 229–230. The hosted reproduction is not a separately certified 2026 consolidation. The governing Turkish text, applicable law and actual charter terms control over this explanatory English guide.
Ask about a voyage-charter cancellation account
Identify the Turkish connection, loading stage, contractual role and amount demanded. Use a non-sensitive outline first; confidential documents should be shared through an agreed channel.
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