A Study On The Charterers' Liability

For the time being, more and more Chinese companies have joined the shipping industry for chartering business, but haven' t fully realized what is the risk of the chartering business, therefore more and more cases happened to them. This paper wants to analyze the liability and risk of the charterers, so as to make the Chinese companies, which have engaged in chartering business in the international shipping market, pay enough attention to the liability and risk which the charterers shall face.There are two researching methods used in this paper, one is comparing the concept of the charterer with the other legal subjects, the another is connecting the theory with the practice, such as analyzing the charterers' legal position including liability and risk under the different legal relationships, giving some advice to the charterers that how to make liability insurance and how to control the risk for the charterers.The concept of the charterers is not defined clearly in the Chinese Maritime Code, but actually it is always used in the shipping practice. According to the Chinese Maritime Code, there are three kinds of charterers, i. e. voyage charterers, time charterers and bareboat charterers. This paper does a study on the relationship between the charterers and NVOCC. According to the International Maritime Regulation of THE P. R.C., this paper also clarifies the subject qualification of the company which engaged in chartering business in china.The charterers maybe become the shippers, carriers or actual carriers, sometimes even have no any legal relationship with the cargo parties, which depends on the charterers' s legal position under thedifferent shipping legal relationgships. This paper clarifies the charterers' legal position and liability under the different contracts, e. g. voyage charter party, time charter party and bareboat charter party.This paper also compares the charterers with the ship operators, which both appeared in the same clause of the Chinese Maritime Code. This paper gives a definiton of the ship operators and has a study on the relationship between the ship operators and the time/bareboat charterers.The form and clauses of voyage charter party are different from which of time charter party. The charterers face different liability and risk under different charter parties. This paper analyzes the charterers' liability and risk under different charter parties.The charterers' liability insurance is not so popular in china, bul it is mature in Europe market. Charterers can protect their own benefit by making the liability insurance. This paper also gives charterers some advices on how to make the liability insurace in shipping practice.It is popular in shipping industry to control the risk by using the structure of the company. "Piercing the corporate veil" is not admitted by the Chinese corporate law, but sometimes admitted by the Knglish and American law. After studying the latest cases ,this paper trios to give some advices that how to pierce the corporate veil and how to avoid piercing the corporate veil.[n all, Chinese shipping companies must recognize fully the liability and risk faced by themselves when they engaged in chartering business in international shipping market and take appropriate steps to control the risks for their own healthy development.