Study On Us Rule B Attachment

Attachment is an important legal institution in settling maritime disputes. US Rule B attachment is a typical one. Rule B attachment is well-known to all the maritime industry players over world due that it can be quickly applied and applicants can easily get security with low costs. It makes up Quasi in Rem action, which is different from traditional action in Personam and action in Rem in US.Rule B attachment has a very long history and experienced many important developments and changes. In 2002, Electronic Funds Transfers ("EFTs") were decided as attachable property by US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the famous "Winter Storm" case. International maritime industry customarily trades in US dollars, and further all the US dollars' transfers between bank accounts outside US must pass through intermediary banks located in US. This makes that Rule B attachment was wantonly utilized by maritime industry players, even with suspicion of abusiveness. In 2009, Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overruled their previous decision and ordered that EFTs should not be attachable. Then the wide utilization of Rule B attachment has slowed down temporarily. But its subsequent effect continues and discussion over this mechanism never stops.On the basis of several cases with important influence, this article analyzes the content of Rule B, legal nature, apply, elusion measures and other legal issues of Rule B attachment, with effort to introduce this institution comprehensively. Furthermore, Rule B attachment is compared with Chinese maritime claims security. As a conclusion, the article puts forward some legal suggestion in improving two respects of The Special Maritime Procedure Law, i.e. counter-security set up by maritime claimants and set up post-attachment prompt trial procedure.