Meeting of the Transport Law Committee

A regular meeting of the Transport Law Committee was held on the 23rd of September 2011 in Odessa.

A regular meeting of the Transport Law Committee was held in the office of the Law Firm ‘ANK’ dedicated to the ‘Loss of the Cargo Documents: Ways to Protect the Rights of Carrier and Cargo Owner’. The event was attended by the senior lawyer Aleksandr Chebotarenko from ‘International Law Offices& rsquo;.

Moderator of the event was Artem Volkov – the Deputy Head of the Committee, attorney of the Law Firm ‘ANK’.

Besides the specialists from the law firms the event was attended by the representatives of the shipping lines, in particular, the lawyers from the container lines such as ARKAS Line, Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGS.

The Deputy Head of the Committee, Artem Volkov, congratulated in his welcome speech all the guests with having Ukraine joined the 1952 Brussels Convention on the Arrest of Sea-Going Ships and entry into force of the International Convention on Arrest of Ships 1999 (Geneva). This fact provides new opportunities for the arrest of ships under the foreign flags in the Ukrainian ports.

The first reporter was Dmitriy Kolodyazhniy, lawyer from the Law Firm ‘ANK’, who covered the main problems that the parties to the sea carriage are faced with in case of the Bills of Lading loss. He also shared the examples from his practice and discussed the main ways for securing the carrier’s interests in case the cargo is received without originals of the Bills of Lading.

After that the participants of the meeting discussed the issues related to the registration of bank guarantees, guarantee letters and their application in practice. The most active participants were Aleksandr Chebotarenko, senior lawyer from ‘International Law Offices’ and Vagif Mallayev, senior partner of the Law Firm ‘Lexcellence’.

Besides, it was agreed on the date of the next meeting of the Transport Law Committee to be held on Friday, 25 November 2011, at 3:00 p.m. The participants will discuss the new Law & lsquo;On Sea Ports’ that is under consideration in the Verkhovna Rada now.