Category transfers complicated treaty compliance

A navy could move up to ten percent between light-cruiser and destroyer categories, giving Britain a theoretical path to nearly 170,000 tons of destroyers. This flexibility also created ambiguity when declared displacements were already open to understatement. A state challenged over excessive construction could claim that some of its transfer allowance covered the apparent discrepancy. More exceptions therefore meant more room for interpretation, accounting tricks, and outright cheating.