A Study Of The Relation Between The Procedure Of The Limitation Of Liability For Maritime Claims And The Procedure Of Bankruptcy

Maritime navigation experiences great risk, and cargo damage or ship-cargo damage happens occasionally. When a maritime accident occurs and causes great damage, the legal responsibility subjects, including shipowner and other persons, are entitled to file an application to the maritime court for the establishment of limitation fund for maritime claims. However, it is usual that the person who are responsible for compensation or ordinary civil creditors apply to bankrupt in a court due to his inability to repay debts. Considering the fact that many bankruptcy applications are submitted just before or after the start of LLMC procedure, conflicts will probably arise between the procedure of LLMC and the procedure of bankruptcy because of their different stipulations under maritime law and bankruptcy law respectively. In this case, urgent questions appear on how to properly handle maritime claims and general civil claims, rightly confirm the compensation order of various claims, as well as how to coordinate the court proceedings and enforcement procedures, etc.. Nevertheless, it remains an unsettled conflict in the crossing fields between CMC and Bankruptcy Law, CMC and Property Law, as well as Substantive Law and Procedure Law respectively. Although there is less in in practice,it will eventually become a big issue which will trouble maritime theoretical and practical circles. This thesis is divided into four parts, and main contents are as follows,The first chapter and the second chapter provide a brief overview of the limitation of liability for maritime claims procedures and bankruptcy proceedings.The third chapter gives a detailed illustration on conflicts between LLMC procedures and bankruptcy procedures, including but not limited to contingency questions of LLMC procedure’s launch after the start of bankruptcy launch, the investigation and confirmation on maritime claims and bankruptcy claims and the relationship between the named property and LLMC.In Chapter IV, a legislation advice with respect to the settlement of conflict between LLMC procedure and bankruptcy procedure is given, basing on the analysis of conflict reasons. Moreover, a comprehensive study is also conducted on the whole legislation means and some advices on solving specific problems are provided Chapter V aims at the overall analysis on conflict between procedures of LLMC and cross-border procedures of bankruptcy. The author also draws a solution to settle the existing jurisdictional issues and the law applicable problems.This article will detail the conflict that exists between the two programs and two programs involved in conflicts between different rights. Guiding by basic theory of jurisprudence and legal principles, advices on resolving the problems arising from the conflict and improvement on LLMC procedure are provided.This study will have a positive influence on improving our legal system of LLMC procedures and the maritime judicial practice.