Archie Bishop
Merchant seaman and lawyer expert in cases involving salvage after collisions and disasters at sea
ARCHIE BISHOP, who has died aged 86, played a central role in the development of international maritime salvage law and practice; his experience in the Merchant Navy lay behind his later success as a maritime lawyer, specialising in salvage and collision disputes.
Aware of the difficulty in negotiating a settlement after collisions – often because of the lack of reliable witnesses – Bishop realised that clients generally preferred a friendly settlement to a costly court case. He was a man of integrity and sound common sense, and a skilled litigator.
For centuries the law of salvage at sea was governed by Lloyd’s Open Form (“open” because no specific reward was attached to a salvage claim), which was further governed by a rule of “no cure, no pay”, meaning that a salvor only gets paid if property is recovered.
Then in 1992, after an alleged pirate attack, the tanker Nagasaki Spirit collided in the Malacca Strait with the container ship Ocean Blessing, and crude oil spilled into the sea and caught fire. All but two of some 50 crewmen from the two ships perished; Bishop’s handling of the case on behalf of the insurers was praised by Richard Sayer of Ince & Co, a frequent opponent in such cases.
The case went through many stages of appeals until it reached the House of Lords, which in 1997 ruled that compensation did not include any element of profit for the professional salvors. The salvage industry was disappointed, and in consequence Bishop, who served on the Lloyd’s of London standing committee which reviewed and revised the Lloyd’s Open Form, pioneered changes in the custom and practice of the law at sea.
Despite resistance from sections of the shipping industry, SCOPIC (Special Compensation Protection and Indemnity Clause) was introduced, meaning that salvors would not only be compensated at a fair rate for their men and equipment, but would also receive compensation if their work limited damage to the environment.
William Archie Bishop was born on July 21 1937 in Bridgwater, Somerset, at the Golden Ball Hotel, where his father was landlord. Archie’s adventures started early when as a young boy he would spend summers camping with his three older brothers in the Somerset countryside. They would cycle 12 miles from home with their dog Carlo, and their parents would visit at weekends with supplies.
After Colston’s School, Bristol, in 1952 Archie joined Thames Nautical Training College, HMS Worcester. Two years later, at 16, he began an apprenticeship as a cadet with P&O. By 1959 he was Third Officer in the new cargo ship Salsette. The next year he joined Holman Fenwick Willan as an articled clerk and was sponsored for six years’ part-time study at Guildford Law College.
By 1988 he had risen to senior partner in HFW, a role he described as being “the lone lamp-post in a street full of dogs”. Leading by example, when payment of retired partners’ pensions out of profits threatened the viability of HFW, he gave up his own rights.
As a lecturer at the International Maritime Law Institute in Malta, Bishop enthralled his audiences with his practical lessons of the law in action. When scores of vessels were damaged during the so-called “tanker war” (part of the Iran-iraq war), he acted for the salvors: a typical case in 1984 was the Swiss-owned, Liberian-registered supertanker Tiburon carrying Iranian oil. Flames spread to the superstructure, and two days after the attack the ship was wallowing, with only 3ft of hull above the water. Eight crew were killed and three seriously injured, but salvage tugs extinguished the fire and towed Tiburon into Bahrain.
In another case, he acted for a shipowner who wanted to claim salvage on an unexploded missile; he had to explain several legal obstacles, including an obligation to return the missile to its Iraqi owners.
He also told how, in 1997, a Japanese tuna boat was struck by a falling cow. Some Russians had been disturbed while rustling Kobe beef cattle in northern Japan using a transport plane. They took off in a great hurry, but when the aircraft stalled, the pilot opened the rear door and livestock fell out, one of which entered the boat through the roof of the wheelhouse.
Bishop was an attractive and charismatic man cut from old-fashioned cloth; he believed in the power of charm and good humour to bring people together. He never lost the twinkle in his blue eyes nor his West Country burr, and he mixed effortlessly with people from all walks of life. His passion for horses led him to go on riding and camping trips in the Rocky Mountains.
He married Joan Sherman and after they divorced, in 1997 he married Annie Edwards, who survives him with a son and daughter from his first marriage and a stepdaughter.