Virgin Media Wholesale Ltd v Owners and All Persons Claiming and Interest in the Lida Suzanna

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Mr. Justice Denis McDonald
• Judgment Date: 18 September 2025
• Neutral Citation: [2025] IEHC 493
• Court: High Court
• Docket Number: Record no. 2018 9581P

The Lida Suzanna

Between:

Virgin Media Wholesale Limited

Plaintiff

and

The Owners and All Persons Claiming An Interest in the Lida Suzanna

Defendants

[2025] IEHC 493

Record no. 2018 9581P

THE HIGH COURT

ADMIRALTY

Damages – Negligence – Liability – Plaintiff seeking to recover the costs of repairing the damage to a subsea cable – Whether the defendants were negligent

Facts: The plaintiff, Virgin Media Wholesale Ltd, brought an action against the defendants, the owners of the Lida Suzanna (a fishing vessel), arising from damage to a subsea cable. The defendants put the plaintiff on proof of ownership of the cable. The defendants contended that the plaintiff’s case did not get off the ground in circumstances where the defendants maintained that there was no evidence that the plaintiff had suffered any loss. The plaintiff had made the case that a related company, namely Virgin Media Ltd, paid out any expenses incurred in respect of the cable in the first instance and such expenses were then charged back to the plaintiff. The defendants maintained that the plaintiff did not provide any evidence to the High Court that there was any charge back to the plaintiff in respect of the cost of repair of the cable and that, absent such evidence, the plaintiff could not succeed in its case. The defendants contended that the plaintiff had failed to prove that it was the Lida Suzanna that caused the damage to the cable. In the event that the Court concluded that the plaintiff had made out its case in relation to each of the above issues, the defendants argued that the intersection of fishing activity and the interests of cableowners in laying cables across existing fishing grounds gives rise to a “complicated obligational matrix as regards the rights and duties of both fishers and cableowners”. The defendants contended that they were entitled to fish over the cable and they also contended that it was a fundamental duty of the plaintiff, if found to be the cableowner, to ensure that the cable did not interfere with fishing activity by ensuring that the cable was sufficiently buried in the seabed. The defendants also contended that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence by failing to periodically inspect its cable and ensure that it was effectively buried at all times under the seabed. In addition to the defendants’ contention that the plaintiff had failed to prove its loss, the defendants also raised issues in relation to the quantification of the losses claimed by the plaintiff.

Held by McDonald J that the plaintiff was the owner of the cable and that the damage to the cable that was sustained in the period around 11:41hrs on 26 January 2015 was caused by the Lida Suzanna. McDonald J also came to the conclusion that the defendants were negligent and in breach of their duty of care by dredging over the cable and that the Lida Suzanna ought to have hauled its gear before crossing the cable.

McDonald J held that, as a consequence, the plaintiff was entitled to recover from the defendants the costs of repairing the damage to the cable which he had assessed in the sum of $397,514.02 together with the additional sum of £9,000. McDonald J held that there would be judgment against the defendants in favour of the plaintiff for the euro equivalent of those sums but he refused to award interest to the plaintiff under s. 22 of the Courts Act 1981.

Damages awarded to plaintiff.

JUDGMENT of Mr. Justice Denis McDonald delivered on 18 ^th September 2025

Contents

Introduction	- 2 -
The issues to be determined	- 4 -
Ownership of the Cable	- 7 -
The evidence of Mr. Mark David Hardman in relation to ownership	- 7 -
Mr. Hardman's evidence in relation to the role of Virgin Media Limited	- 12 -
The claims made by Virgin Media Limited that it is the owner of the cable	- 13 -
The terms of the cable crossing agreement suggesting that Virgin Media Limited is the owner of the cable	- 14 -
The second set of proceedings in relation to the cable in which Virgin Media Limited is named as plaintiff	- 14 -
Gaps in Mr. Hardman's evidence identified by counsel for the defendants	- 15 -
The plaintiff's application to supplement its evidence as to ownership of the cable	- 15 -
The affidavit of the plaintiff's solicitor dealing with the need to call further evidence	- 16 -
The additional evidence on the issue of ownership given by Ms. Caroline Egan	- 18 -
The arguments of the parties in relation to ownership of the cable	- 22 -
Conclusion in relation to the ownership of the cable	- 24 -
Has the plaintiff suffered a loss?	- 30 -
Did the Lida Suzanna cause the damage to the cable?	- 36 -
What was the location and nature of the damage suffered by the cable?	- 39 -
Findings of fact in relation to the location and nature of the damage done to the cable	- 48 -
The expert evidence called by the plaintiff in relation to the location and movement of the Lida Suzanna relative to the location of damage to the cable	- 49 -
The evidence of Mr. Brian Molloy, the skipper of the Lida Suzanna	- 61 -
The evidence of the expert witness called by the defendants, Captain Nathan Mills	- 66 -
Findings of fact in relation to the issue as to whether the Lida Suzanna caused the damage to the cable	- 67 -
Are the defendants liable for the damage to the cable?	- 73 -
Was there contributory negligence on the plaintiff's part?	- 88 -
The plaintiff's claim to damages	- 89 -
The quantum fixed by the Court	- 95 -
The claim to interest under s. 22 of the Courts Act 1981	- 95 -
Conclusion	- 96 -

Introduction

1 . This is an action against the owners of a fishing vessel arising from damage to a subsea cable. The plaintiff claims to be the owner of a subsea telecommunications cable called Sirius South ( “the cable”) which was laid in 1998 and runs under the Irish Sea from a terminal at Lytham St. Annes, Lancashire, England to a terminal at Portmarnock, County Dublin. The cable is 218.693kms long from beach transition point in Ireland to beach transition point in England. The cable contains 48 optical fibre strands which are used for the transmission of data. Along with a second cable known as Sirius North (which runs between Scotland and Northern Ireland) the cable, at the relevant time, carried all of the plaintiff's internet data, television and telephone traffic between the United Kingdom and the island of Ireland.

2 . The claim is asserted against the owners of an Irish registered fishing vessel, the Lida Suzanna which is based in the port of Wexford. At the time of the incident the subject matter of these proceedings, the vessel was engaged in scallop trawling in the Irish Sea. The registered length of the trawler is 21.54 metres but its 1 overall length is 25 metres and its breadth is 6.4 metres. The trawler has a depth of 2.87 metres and is equipped with a 221kW Mitsubishi engine, Model 65A3003. For the purposes of scallop trawling, the vessel is equipped with two scallop trawls, one for use on the starboard side and the other for use on the port side. Each scallop trawl comprises a heavy steel frame and is equipped with spring-loaded metal tines (approximately 9cms or 4ins in depth) which are towed across the seabed by means of a trawl line or “warp”. The tines are designed to scrape the seabed for scallops.

3 . The plaintiff claims that, in the course of scallop trawling undertaken by the Lida Suzanna, on 26 ^th January 2015, the scallop trawls damaged the cable in international waters in the Irish Sea. In para. 3 of the statement of claim delivered in the proceedings on 1 ^st March 2019, it was alleged that the damage occurred while the Lida Suzanna was engaged in trawling operations over the cable at coordinates 53°38.113N and 4°53.849W approximately 136 kilometres west of the Lytham St. Anne's terminal station. It should be noted, however, that, on the final day of the hearing, the plaintiff applied to amend para. 3 of its statement of claim to identify a different location for the occurrence of damage namely a position represented by coordinates 53° 38.113N and 4°52.849W. It appears to be clear that this arose as a consequence of an accidental error. More significantly, the plaintiff also applied to amend the categoric plea made in para. 5 of the statement of claim that the “location of damage was confirmed to be at the Location detailed in para. 3 …” to read: “The location of damage was in the vicinity of the Location detailed at paragraph 3 above along the length of the Cable over a distance of approximately 260 metres”. (emphasis added). This amendment was necessitated as a consequence of the way in which the evidence unfolded at the trial during the cross-examination of the plaintiff's witnesses, It transpired that the location represented by coordinates 53° 38.113N and 4°52.849W was not where the actual damage occurred. It was no more than the predicted location of the damage derived from remote testing of the line.

4 . The damage to the cable became known on 26 ^th January 2015 at approximately 11:41hrs when a fault alarm was triggered on the plaintiff's network management system which monitors activity on the cable in real time. As explained by Mr. Peter Jamieson, the principal engineer (core fibre and subsea) of the plaintiff's related company Virgin Media O2, the fault alarm is activated by an automated fault trigger system which is deployed when equipment based at the terminal points in Portmarnock and Lytham St. Annes stop communicating with each other. According to Mr. Jamieson, within a millisecond of communication breaking down, an alarm is triggered and this sets off the process of testing (which is described further...