Analysis Of BIMCO’s Standard Ship Management Agreement

As a new corporate body, the ship management companies have a deep development in the last decades. The history of ship management industry is not very long, but the new body attracts more and more ship owners’ attentions in developed shipping countries. In addition, it plays a more and more important role in improving the flexibility of ship operation, reducing the cost of ship running, improving the service standard and so on.The ship manager is a separate company who takes the commission from the ship owner, and agrees to handle the affairs of ship management to the extent of commission. The contract of the ship management is the embodiment of the civil juristic relationship between the ship manager and owner. The ship manager is the agent of the ship owner in most circumstances performing the civil conduct with the third party, in which case the provisions of commission contracts and principal-agent could be applied to the affirm of the status of the ship manager.As the world’s largest and the most extensive-influence self-management organization, the standard contracts of BIMCO take about 75 percent or so in the shipping industry. SHIPMAN2009 integrates into the new features of times and new theoretical elements, trying to provide a clear, modern, comprehensive and balanced contract text. Based on this, we should study SHIPMAN2009. As the newest ship manage standard contract, the main clauses need to be analysized.And this thesis is to identify whether the standard contract are used in china.There are four charters in the thesis. In the Charter 1, the author mainly analyzes the relationship between ship management and ship management agreement. And emphasize the importance of ship management agreement in the ship management practice. In the Charter 2, the author focuses to introduce the background, contents and characters of SHIPMAN2009. In the Charter 3, combined with specific practice of ship management, the author gives ship manager and ship owner the accurate orientation in the responsibility system of SHIPMAN2009. In the Charter 4, by analyzing Chinese valid law, the author draws the conclusion that SHIPMAN2009 can be used in China.