A Research On Seller's Warranty Of Ship Condition And The Relevant Obligation In Ship Sale And Purchase

Ship sale and purchase,which is mentioned in this article,is of a narrow meaning referring to the sale and purchase of second-hand ship.The condition of the dealing ship forms an important part in ship sale.The warranty of vendor that the ship was accorded with the requirements of law or contract is one of the major obligations for the ship seller.Seller's obligation to guaranty that the ship consisted with requirements derives from two sources,one is the law,the other is the contract.Usually,parties of the contract will choose English law as the lex causae of the contract.However,English law would bring different result when decided what statutory requirements on the condition of ship compared to applying Chinese law.In practice,most of ship sale contracts are revised on the basis of standard contract.The most acceptable standard contract is the Norwegian Shipbroker 's Association Standard Memorandum of Agreement,the latest version is SALEFORM 2012.And Shanghai Shipping Exchange published its own standard contract for ship sale and purchase.These two different standard contracts bring different requirements on ship condition.However,the standard contract brought by Shanghai Shipping Exchange was based on Norwegian Saleform,so the research on the latter would benefit the study of the former.If the ship was inconsistent with the condition required by law and the contract,there would be two results,one is that buyer can refuse the notice of readiness delivered by seller and this belongs to seller's duty to deliver ship,the other is that the seller had to take the responsibilities for breach the warranty of ship condition.As for the buyer's remedies for seller's breach relating to ship's condition,the English law and the Chinese law have different regulations in kind and priority.But when considering the likely remedies,the legal results are quite same,so the regulations of one country would be good reference to the other.However,when considering the calculation of damages suffered by the buyer,the English law and the Chinese law are almost the same.