Articles

A new Chinese environmental law that bans the carriage of a range of highly toxic and dangerous chemicals in the Yangtze River Basin took effect on 1 March 2021. Violation of the law may lead to substantial fines and ship operators trading in this area should carry out appropriate due diligence to check whether any cargoes carried are on the lists of banned chemicals.

The Tai Prize decision is unsurprising in result in that it reaffirms the Master’s obligations under the Hague-Visby regime.  It is, however, a demonstration of a failed attempt by a time charterer to pass liability to the voyage charterer for damage to soya beans due to pre-shipment conditions. Following their breakdown of the case, our authors discussed the options in such cases for Owners, Time Charterers and their P&I Clubs with Solicitor Darryl Kennard of Penningtons Manches Cooper LLC.

Gard, as a liability insurer for shipowner and charterers, has faced several large value soya bean damage claims in Chinese courts for damage to soya beans carried from Brazil. Shipowners ought not to be held liable for damage when the damage results from microbiological instability, a natural process that occurs due to moisture content of the beans, their temperature at loading and the time in the stow. Christopher Mackrill, Gard’s leader for cargo claims and Louis Shepherd, a Senior Claims Adviser and solicitor in our London office, discuss the legal and commercial landscape underpinning these claims. 

Since 20 February 2010 liabilities arising in respect of the carriage of cargo under such paperless trading systems were covered, provided that the system had first been approved by the Group.  Since then the Group has approved electronic i.e. paperless systems administered by Electronic Shipping Solutions (now known as essdocs), by Bolero International Ltd (more specifically the Rulebook/Operating procedures September 1999), E-Title,  edoxOnline, CargoX, WAVE and from 24 March 2021 TradeLens has been added to the list of IG approved system providers.

Plastic persists in the ocean and causes damage to wildlife. Although legislation was first introduced in 1988 to prevent pollution by garbage from ships the issue of plastic waste in our oceans is unfortunately still very much with us.

We outline steps to be taken when vessels arrive with damaged soyabeans in China or when experiencing delays to discharge.