Shipowner’s Liens over Cargo Early Contract and Charterparty Review (Part 5 of Economic Crisis Series)

Shipowner’s lien over cargo.   Part 5 of our series on how to deal with an economic crisis – a guide for international businesses.   Luke Zadkovich unpacks the fundamental differences between the US and English approaches to shipowner’s liens over cargo.  This has been a hot topic for a few years now, most recently with the English liquidation of British Steel in 2019 and prior to that, the collapse Hanjin Shipping and others.   One of the unfortunate business realities of an economic crisis is that it typically results in more bankruptcies and insolvencies.  Edward Floyd discusses bankruptcy proceedings in detail later in this series.   In this talk, we assess what a shipowner can do to secure its payments under a charterparty or bill of lading through the exercise of its cargo lien rights and other measures.  Charterers/cargo interests will also be interested to navigate through these tricky scenarios.   ps. look out for the Athos 1 unsafe berth analogy at 17:00mins – especially given the US Supreme Court’s decision came out yesterday.  If you have any further questions on this topic, please contact Luke Zadkovich.