A Case Study On The Jurisdiction Conflict In Cross-border Maritime Insolvency

When a shipowner becomes insolvent,or when it appears that it soon may be so,creditors would move to arrest its ships or attach its other assets wherever in the world they can be found,using admiralty procedures designed to protect the interests of local claimants.When this occurs,conflicts between insolvency proceedings and admiralty proceedings arise.If the shipowner is an international company,conflicts intensify in the context of multinational jurisdictions.Above all,conflict of jurisdictions is the primary issue confronted when courts dealing with cross-border maritime insolvency cases.To be concrete,conflict of jurisdictions includes the clash of maritime proceedings and insolvent proceedings,as well as jurisdictions of courts at home country where debtor registered and at foreign country where debtor's assets or creditors locate.This thesis is focusing on this issue by way of discussing a model case,namely the bankruptcy of Hanjin Shipping Co.Ltd.Reference analysis,empirical analysis and some other research methods are used when analyzing legal regimes and judicial practice of Singapore,United States and China.Due conclusion will be concluded after comparative study.The thesis has five parts including introduction and conclusion.The second part will introduce the detailed background of Hanjin shipping insolvency as well as the conflict of jurisdiction related.The third part will focus on fundamental conceptions,main issues as well as relevant international rules regarding cross-border maritime bankruptcy.The forth part will discuss three different approaches to Hanjin Shipping bankruptcy represented by national practice of Singapore,United States,and China.An in-depth inspection would be given in the context of each country's legal regime and judicial practice.After all the analysis,it is safe to reach a conclusion in relation to general standards and suggestions to China's legal practice of dealing with conflict of jurisdictions.