Arias, Fábrega & Fábrega represented Chevron Texaco (then Texaco Inc.) in connection with its negotiation of US$77 million concession contract to modernize its Panamanians refining facilities, the negotiation and international commercial arbitration proceedings to resolve disputes arising from its breach, and the 2002 settlement of the dispute. 

ARIFA, acting on behalf of FAMM Antilles, succeeded in obtaining judgment from the First Chamber of the Panama Supreme Court to recognize FAMM Antilles' right to necessary joinder as party plaintiff and to benefit from a maritime limitation fund.  This follows an earlier success on April 19, 2007 by Arias, Fábrega & Fábrega, acting on behalf of FAMM and FAMM Antilles, when the Panama Supreme Court recognized the enforceability by Panama's maritime jurisdiction of an international arbitration clause (AAA arbitration) and the application of New York substantive law to a contractual dispute, provided in FAMM's website containing its global terms for sales and supplies of marine fuels, in a case stemming from an accident in Panamanian waters.

On December 9, 2003, while supplying fuels ordered globally from FAMM and through the Panamanian subsidiary of FAMM Antilles providing this service to vessels in international transit through the Panama Canal, an accident occurred aboard the motor vessel VISCAYA, the property of HDS VISCAYA KS, a Norwegian entity.  The accident occurred while the vessel was taking marine fuels supplied through FAMM Antilles in the Balboa Anchorage, at the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal.  The fuels were being provided through independent barge services, time chartered by FAMM Antilles but owned and demised by independent, separate entities.  The vessel owner attributed responsibility in tort to the barge owner and operator, and contractually to FAMM and FAMM Antilles.  The vessel owner first sued the barge owner and operator in the Panama Maritime Court, who in turn sued to limit their liability and those of other persons from the same incident under Panamanian substantive and procedural provisions patterned on the 1976 Limitation of Liability Convention.  The barge owners and operators set up a US$1,292,099.00 limitation fund on June 21, 2004.  One year after the accident, the vessel owner sued FAMM and FAMM Antilles for US$4,213,000.00 for the same losses.

Among the various defenses presented by FAMM and FAMM Antilles were the existence of a valid arbitration stipulation (AAA arbitration) by reference to terms and conditions of global application contained in FAMM's website, agreed to by the VISCAYA's owner and operators upon ordering the marine fuels to be delivered at Balboa; the applicability of foreign law (New York substantive law) to the contractual dispute; and the right of FAMM Antilles to limit its liability, as time charterer of the barge, and to benefit from the limitation fund consigned by the barge owner and operator, under principles of universality of the limitation proceedings.  The vessel owner objected to remanding the dispute to international arbitration claiming this should not apply in the case where the Panama maritime court took jurisdiction over a matter that arose out of an accident which occurred in Panamanian waters.  The vessel owner also objected to FAMM Antilles being admitted in joinder as a necessary party plaintiff in the limitation proceedings, since it was doing so only in its self interest and not because without its joinder it would be impossible to dispense justice to all parties to the litigation, and claiming that the right of FAMM Antilles to claim limitation had been time barred by more than six months having transpired since its initial letter of claim sent at the end of December 2003.  All these issues were resolved at trial level by the Maritime Judge and sent on final appeal for review by the First Chamber of the Panama Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court's first decision on the matter came on April 19, 2007, at which time it ruled that, despite the accident having occurred in Panama, FAMM’s global terms and conditions, to be found on the web, and containing the submission to arbitration, should be respected by the Panamanian court.  It thus ordered the Maritime Court to decline the exercise of its jurisdiction in the proceedings against FAMM and FAMM Antilles and remanded the case to international arbitration.  On June 4, 2008, the Supreme Court has now ruled that the provisions on joinder of parties, contained in the current Panamanian Code of Maritime Procedure (taken from the rules on third party practice contained in the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure), contemplate the necessary joinder of a third party to a dispute when that third party’s interests may be compromised without its joinder, as plaintiff or defendant.  It further ruled that FAMM Antilles' right to limit its liability, and to benefit from the limitation fund set up by the barge owner and operator, was not time barred, since the six months in question were interrupted with respect to all potential beneficiaries of the fund, as from the date limitation of liability for the same set of events was first demanded, by the barge owner and operator.   

This case was important because it set several judicial firsts in Panama.