Insights

On 30th March, 2020, in a landmark decision which followed fifteen years of litigation, the US Supreme Court held that the safe port clause in the standard ASBATANKVOY form constitutes an express warranty of safety by the charterer as a matter of US law.

In the last edition of our Sulphur Series we foreshadowed some of the potential considerations relating to the use of scrubbers as a means of compliance with the MARPOL sulphur cap regulations. Now that scrubbers have come into common usage on many ships, we take an updated look at some of the legal and practical issues that have come to the fore. Find out more.

Another Rosneft-related entity added to the SDN list On 12th March, 2020, OFAC designated TNK Trading International S.A. (“TTI”) to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list under E.O. 13850 for operating in the oil sector of the Venezuelan economy. TTI was also designated to the Sectoral Sanctions Identifications (SSI) list under E.O. 13662 dealing with the Ukraine.

The rapid escalation of the COVID-19 outbreak is having a huge impact on the shipping industry. Many parties are having to review their contractual obligations in light of the developing situation.In this article, we focus in on force majeure provisions in the context of COVID-19.

The UK’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), part of HM Treasury, has upheld two monetary penalties on Standard Chartered Bank for breaching EU financial sanctions. Although following the review, OFSI has reduced the fines from £31.5million to £20.5 million, these penalties are still the highest OFSI has imposed to date. Read more...