Case: narrative drafting or worked example

The High Court has held that worked examples included in an agreement, which were inconsistent with the narrative drafting in the document, took priority and should be used to calculate the sums due.

The facts

In Altera Voyageur Production Ltd v Premier Oil E&P UK Ltd [2020] EWHC 1891 (Comm) Premier Oil chartered a vessel from Altera Voyageur. When the charterparty came to an end, the parties disagreed about how the related charges were to be calculated. The problem was that the two worked examples contained in appendices to the documents included two additional steps which did not feature in the related narrative drafting.