The Research Of The Nature Of Shipbuilding Contract

The shipbuilding contract is more complex compared with the general contractbecause of shipbuilding contract with the character of huge contract amount, longconstruction period, high technical requirements, much applicable specifications etc.In long term of theoretical research and practice, it forms a variety of standardshipbuilding contract in shipbuilding industry, including CSTC contract, AWEScontract, SAJ contract, MARAD contract, BIMC0contract, NW contract, CMACcontract etc. There has been different point of view for the nature of shipbuildingcontract in domestic and foreign industry. Now there are three kinds of mainstreamviews on the nature of shipbuilding contract in international world, that is, the point ofview characterized the shipbuilding contract as the sale contract and the point of viewcharacterized the contract as the processing contract, and the point of viewcharacterized the contract as the mixed contract with the nature of the above twocontracts.Because there is no special law applying for shipbuilding contract in China, so ithas been controversial for the nature of shipbuilding contract, including the point ofview characterized the shipbuilding contract as the sale contract and the processingcontract,which results in many problems in signing and performance of shipbuildingcontract.The article is concentrating on comparing the difference between theshipbuilding contracts characterized the legal nature as sale contract and processingcontract through five aspects, including the object and performance basis of theshipbuilding contract, the transfer of the ownership of the ship, the ownership of ship equipment and material used in construction, the legal requirement of shipbuildingcontract and the actual situation of operation etc. and the different influence caused bythe two different nature of the shipbuilding contract to shipyard. The author agreeswith the theory characterized the shipbuilding contract as sale contract, the reasons are:the standard contents of shipbuilding contract adopted by us reflects that the nature ofthe shipbuilding contract is in line with the character of the sale contract, the characterof shipbuilding contract accords with the sale contract, the ownership of ship underconstruction belongs to the shipyard etc.Combining with the practice in a shipyard and theoretical research, the authorfocuses on elaborating the advantage to the shipyard which characterizes the legalnature of the shipbuilding contract as sale contract, such as it benefits to the shipyardto enjoy the ownership of the ship before delivery and reduce the legal risk, and itbenefits not to be completely controlled by the ship owner in the performance ofshipbuilding contract and get more initiative in the process of production, and itbenefits to be less limited by the subcontract and improve the production capacity ofship construction, and it benefits to curb the randomness of the owner to cancelcontract and improve the contract execution rate, and it benefits to realize thefinancing with the ship under construction as warranty, and it benefits to be in linewith international usual practice, and it benefits to solve the problem of theapplication of law.The purpose of considering the nature of shipbuilding contract as sale contractlies in guaranteeing the shipyard for maximizing the interests of the ship underconstruction. Especially at the time international shipping market continues to weaken,and the ship owner abandons ships frequently caused by the international financialcrisis, the shipyard can accordingly claim to the ship under construction and preventthe expansion of losses.