Shipping is an international business and with participants often from different nationalities, locations, and different systems of law. Accordingly, parties would have different expectations such that disputes would invariably arise. While parties often resolve issues by themselves (by negotiation), some…
The NCovid19 pandemic forced all of us to change the way we both worked and communicated. While the world is now back to normalcy, some of the changes effected during the lockdown in the way work is performed together with…
Shipowners are invariably in a better bargaining position and able to incorporate various clauses in the contract of carriage / Bills of Lading entitling them to either exclude liability or limit liability for any loss or damage to cargo. Given…
Unitization including containerization has allowed cargo to be moved seamlessly between various modes of transport. Often, there are multiple modes of transport used for the movement of goods, one of them being road and the other either being sea, rail…
One of the functions of a Bill of Lading (“B/L”) is that it acts as a document of Titlei in that the Carrier has a duty to deliver the cargo to the holders of the B This duty to deliver, in…
We were involved, some time back, in a situation in which Owners held lien on cargo and containers (without completing the voyage) and sought payment of the unpaid charter hire based on the dicta of The Pioneer Container. While we…
We have, off late, been seeing some claims related to refrigerated cargo arising due to the machinery outages during the sea voyage and perhaps this is due to the extreme heat conditions at the location from where the cargo emanatesi.…
Standard Trading Conditions (“STC”)i,also known as General Conditions of Business, are standardized trading terms advocated by various professional associations for use by their members (Logistics Service Provider (“LSP”) and who may include Freight Forwarders/NVOCC’s). The reason for their development is…
Although approx. 20% of the seaborne cargo by tonnage is carried in container vessels, they constitute approx. 66% in value of the Global International Trade and employ a substantial number of workers. Container shipping, compared to Bulk shipping, is indeed…
Dry shipping disputes generally relate to contractual breaches with respect to charter partiesi, contracts of carriage, sale & purchase and insurance/reinsurance contracts etc. whereas Wet shipping disputes relate to accidents at sea such as collisions, general average, salvage etc. The…