Judgment No. SC 24/18 Civil Appeal No. SC 455/16 accounts to his principal. The agent’s remuneration is paid by the principal and not by a third party. I therefore take it that the moment an agent starts demanding payment from the third party and not from his principal then it means that he is no longer acting in terms of the contract between himself and his principal, but he would have created his own contract with the third party. That contract he would have created with the third party is separate from his contract with his principal. In casu this is what the defendant did. It created its own contract with the plaintiff, which contract was separate from the one it had with Mediterranean Shipping Company.” [15] At page 12 of its judgment, the court, without commenting on the submission by the respondent that it now relied on a contract of depositum, concluded by stating:“If there was no contract between the 2 companies then the defendant should and would have demanded its fee from Mediterranean Shipping Company which is its principal. If there was on (sic) contract the defendant had no business demanding that money from the plaintiff. It also had no business withholding or refusing to release the plaintiff’s container on the basis that the handling fee had not been paid. All the defendant’s payments would have been due from Mediterranean Shipping Company. The plaintiff managed to prove that there was contract between itself and the defendant.” [16] Based on the above findings, the court concluded that the appellant had wrongfully refused to release the container and that the respondent had proved its contractual damages. It consequently made the order which is the subject of this appeal. GROUNDS OF APPEAL [17] In its notice of appeal the appellant raised five grounds. These are:1. The court a quo erred in finding that there was a contract between the appellant and the respondent when the latter was unable to identify the nature of the contract it relied upon and its terms – i.e. whether the contract was one of carriage, depositum or agency. 2. The court a quo erred in finding that there was a contract between the appellant and the respondent despite a contrary indication in the bill of lading and respondent’s lack of knowledge of the terms of the contract it alleged. 7