Change to Shipping Legal Documents Warrants Freight and Liner Industry Wide Consultation

WORLDWIDE – Back in December of last year we told in some detail the history of one of the lesser known and used documents which form the bedrock of the shipping industry. Some, like Bills of Lading and Cargo Manifests are in daily use in the transfer of global freight and familiar to all but, as our previous piece stated, the industry’s most widely used standard contract for the sale and purchase of second hand ships, SALEFORM 93, has been the subject of a revision process by the Norwegian Shipbrokers Association (NSA) and the Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO).

The objective of the revision of SALEFORM 93 has been to bring this well used form in line with current commercial practice and legal developments. An important part of the revision process is to give the wider industry the opportunity to review and provide feed-back and comment on the revised draft prior to the contract being considered for adoption by BIMCO’s Documentary Committee in November.

These two bodies are naturally treating the alteration of such an important legal document with a little trepidation and therefore the NSA and BIMCO have organized a series of consultations, open to all with an interest in sale and purchase of vessels of every type, where the working groups responsible for the revision work will explain the proposed amendments to SALEFORM 93, listen to feedback and answer questions.

The three SALEFORM consultations will take place in Oslo (Thursday 22 September), London (Monday 26 September) and Singapore (Thursday 6 October). The consultations will be half day events, free of charge to all registered participants. Further details of the consultations will be posted on the NSA and BIMCO websites early next week whilst you can register for any one of the consultations HERE and readers should note there will be a limited number of places available whilst it is expected that there will be a lot of interest in these events.