Miller Magazine Issue: 152 August 2022

75 ARTICLE MILLER / AUGUST 2022 eastern part of Romania. However, in August 2020, farm- ers in this region faced hot and dry weather which led to a significant reduction in the yield. The reduced amount of the harvested crop naturally triggered a spike in the prices of Romanian corn. The market fluctuations, in their turn, prompted the seller’s suppliers to deliver the goods to companies paying a higher price for them. As a result, the seller could not procure the necessary amount of corn from its regular suppliers. For this reason, the seller approached its client with the request to cancel the contract due to unfavourable weather conditions. The buyer, however, was inexorable – he urged the seller to stick to its obligations and procure the goods, despite the price increase. Nevertheless, the seller failed to do so and did not supply even a pound of corn as agreed. There was nothing left for the Turkish buyer but to declare the Romanian seller in default and initiate arbitration to recover the losses incurred due to the increase in the price of the goods. FIERCE BATTLE IN ARBITRATION In arbitration, the seller took the position that the drought in Romania constituted a force majeure which released him from liability for the non-delivery of the goods. In support of this position, the seller’s counsel submit- ted the reports of the commissions allegedly appointed by the government. These documents fixed that certain lands in eastern Romania and crops grown on them were damaged by the drought, either totally or partially. In the seller’s view, the reports represented undeniable evidence of force majeure (he even called these reports ‘force majeure certificates’). Having received the defence, we have started to vigor- ously dispute that the seller could be excused from liabil- ity because of the drought in Romania. Our position was straightforward: there was no force majeure at all, the seller just refused to procure the goods because of the high acqui- sition prices. In addition, we argued that the seller was not protected by the force majeure clause as it failed to send a formal notice about the drought to the buyer. After numerous rounds of the parties’ submissions, the tri- bunal proceeded to the preparation of the award. TRIBUNAL’S VERDICT In a few months, the tribunal rendered an award which pro- vided a detailed interpretation of the GAFTA force majeure clause. While the award, of course, is not binding for further