The ship was to make as many trips as possible, and the owners were to be paid an agreed freight rate according to the amount of cargo carried.
(To explain the financial background: from the charterer's point of view, it may have been economically more efficient to delay loading and unloading,[according to whom?]
They argued that the $1000 per day demurrage was so derisory that the term amounted to an exclusion clause denying the shipowner appropriate compensation; and further, that the case of Karsales Ltd v Wallis meant that in the event of a fundamental breach, the law automatically denied such protection of any exclusion clauses.
Therefore, the shipowners were entitled only to claim charterparty demurrage of $1000 per day, not full compensation for their actual loss.
Freedom to contract must surely imply some choice or room for bargaining.” It was plain from Lord Reid's comments that he viewed the shipowners to be the stronger contractual party, so that neither law nor equity could come to their aid once they had prescribed demurrage terms that were insufficient.