Category: Mainbrace | June 2018 (No. 2)

The Ocean Is Awash with Plastic: How Can the Maritime Industry Help?

Joan M. Bondareff and Jeanne M. Grasso

The eight-part series, Blue Planet II, narrated by Sir David Attenborough last year on BBC, seems to have awoken the public’s attention to the crisis of our oceans being littered with vast amounts of plastic, fishing gear, and other types of marine debris. As a result, cities, states, and nations around the world, as well as major cruise lines, are proactively looking at ways to reduce plastic to keep it from entering the sea.

The Extent of the Problem

Most plastic or marine debris comes from land-based sources, including from rivers that enter the sea, especially from coun­tries with less responsible garbage practices. For example, according to the BBC, most garbage in the ocean comes from 15 nations around the Pacific Rim, including China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Thailand.

According to a study published in Nature magazine and also reported in USA Today in March 2018, the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” a collection of floating plastic trash halfway between Hawaii and California, has grown to more than 600,000 square miles—an area twice the size of Texas. The trash is said to come from the Pacific Rim as well as North and South America. Since the garbage patch is in international waters, no nation has stepped up to clean it up. (Id.) Continue reading “The Ocean Is Awash with Plastic: How Can the Maritime Industry Help?”

The Future of the “Safe Port” Warranty: Smooth Sailing or Murkier Waters?

Emma C. Jones

In an age when cybersecurity breaches regularly make headlines, and autonomous vessels are appearing on the not-so-distant horizon, it’s important to consider how age-old contracts like maritime charter parties will fare in the face of rapidly changing technology and the security risks that come with it.

The “safe port” warranty is a tenet of charter party language, and an unsafe port or berth is often asserted in commercial negotiations as justification for damages resulting from delays or damage at port. While there is not a great deal of case law analyzing the warranty in the context of modern technological risks and threats, the cases and arbitration awards that we do have provide an interesting background against which to con­sider the potential for an expansion of the definition of the safe port warranty in an increasingly tech-based world. Continue reading “The Future of the “Safe Port” Warranty: Smooth Sailing or Murkier Waters?”

Gulf Coast Update: The Fifth Circuit Establishes a New “Maritime Contract” Test

David G. Meyer

Whether a particular contract is “maritime” is a legal question that can often arise in disputes subject to potential adjudication in the U.S. court system. There can be several reasons for this. One reason concerns determining whether a civil action can be heard in federal court versus state court. If a maritime contract is at issue, a case might be litigated in federal instead of state courts, and/or a plaintiff might have the ability to file an action in federal court for a pre-judgment arrest or attachment of a vessel or other property of a defendant.

Knock for Knock Defense and Indemnity Clauses

Another area where the issue regularly arises concerns con­tracts connected to oil and gas exploration and drilling activities in both inshore and offshore waters of the Gulf of Mexico. By way of background, oilfield services contracts in the Gulf of Mexico region routinely contain what are known as “knock for knock” defense and indemnity clauses. In a typical knock for knock scheme, each company on a job agrees to indemnify, defend, and provide additional insured coverage to the others so that each is liable for injury to its own employees, regardless of fault. The intent underlying this is to apportion the insurable risk each contracting party bears to their relative size and role in the venture. Theoretically, this allows smaller companies to compete for jobs without potentially cost-prohibitive insurance premiums, and costs are further reduced by a decreased need to litigate the issue of liability among multiple defendants, as liability is assumed irrespective of fault or negligence of any other party. Continue reading “Gulf Coast Update: The Fifth Circuit Establishes a New “Maritime Contract” Test”