Interlegal first international seminar in Tbilisi

On March 17, 2017, Interlegal held the first international seminar – “The challenging issues of container transportation: claims against shipping lines, claims under the bills of lading, freight issues” in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. Radisson Blue Iveria Hotel gathered over 50 participants from Georgian various transport companies: freight forwarders, container line representatives, insurance companies, cargo terminals and lawyers specialized in transport.

The distinguishing feature of the seminar were three operating languages: Russian, English and Georgian because the speakers represented three Interlegal Black Sea Offices: Odessa ( Arthur Nitsevych, Andrey Perepelitsa, Mikhail Kudynskyi), Turkish (Mehmet Dogu) and Georgian (Valerian Imnaishvili, Paata Kopaleishvili). Zurab Shengelia, President of FIATA Association of Freight Forwarders of Georgia, held a welcome speech for participants to the seminar. In the framework of two sessions, the participants familiarized with reports on vital topics concerning container transportations. The seminar touched the issued of risks under dangerous and reefer cargo transportation by sea, claims due to unclaimed cargos at foreign ports, fraud with freight, payments, documents etc.

Special attention was drawn to the set of issues which awoke quite many questions among the audience – the issues of General average.

Other essential issues concerned arbitration in London and debt recovery from the counteragents in Turkey. The final accord was case study by Interlegal Georgian partners on several cases of cargo theft at the Poti and Batumi sea ports.

Coffee break and a welcome glass of wine at the end of the seminar let participants to continue discussions with colleagues in the unofficial atmosphere.

See you next time in Tbilisi! We decided to make this seminar a traditional annual event!