Demurrage And Delay The Loss Of Its Associated Legal Issues

Demurrage and damage for detention have always been one of the most complicated parts of tramp shipping business, causing lots of disputes. Plenty of good and detailed books and articles have been made on this subject. This Thesis aims to discuss and study on the related legal issues of demurrage and damage for detention, and base on which advice and suggestion will be given to the Ship Owners about how to protect their own interest of demurrage and damage for detention.The spirit of demurrage is to set an agreed amount payable to the owner in respect of delay to the vessel beyond the certain lay time in the Charter Party before hand. It's liquidated damage. In practice, there are various occasions causing detention of ship, for which Charterer is responsible, and most of which are not able to be anticipated in the Charter Party before hand. This is what we call Damage for Detention, which is calculated basis on the actual loss Owners suffer. However, if rate of demurrage have been agreed in the Charter Party, then most of the detention will be settled as per the rate of demurrage. Only if the Owners can prove these detentions were caused by the Charterer, and have nothing to do with the loading and discharging operations, can it be calculated basis the market level of that time.There are also two special cases of demurrage and damage for detention: one is Sub-Charter, under which the lay time commencement and the calculation and allocation of demurrage and damage for detention are somehow different with that of normal Charters, because normally the principals and spirits of demurrage and damage for detention are discussed and studied basis on whole-vessel Charters. Another one is Oil Charter. Some special clauses have been set in the Charter Party just because the transportation of crude oil and oil products are different with that of normal dry bulk cargoes. Accordingly, the demurrage and damage for detention in the oil charters have their own special characteristics.International shipping is closely related with the international trading, so are the demurrage and damage for detention. The concerned parties in the international sales contract sometime become regulated by the Charter parties which they didn't even participate in, by being claimed for demurrage and/or damage for detention by the Owners, who is quoting the Cesser Clause and incorporation of charter party terms in the B/L. Therefore, the cooperation between sales contract and the charter party is very essential in reducing the risk of owners in demurrage and damage for detention.From above discussion of the related legal issues of demurrage and damage for detention, we can assume that the risks of demurrage and damage for detention are everywhere. How to avoid these risks becomes very important. Firstly, in the stage of negotiation of the charter parties, some certain clauses which are in...