OK, YAR? BIMCO gives thumbs up to York Antwerp Rules 2016.

BIMCO has decided that all new and revised BIMCO charter parties, bills of lading and waybills will refer to general average being adjusted in accordance with the YAR 2016 adopted by the CMI earlier this month. The main features of the new rules are as follows.

The new rules revert to certain key provisions of the 1994 rules, as regards:

– salvage (art VI),

– inclusion of wages and maintenance of the master, officers and crew during the period a vessel is in a port or place of refuge undergoing repairs recoverable in general average (rule XI).

– removal of the cap, introduced in the YAR 2004, on the cost of temporary repairs of accidental damage at a port of refuge (rule XIV)

The new rules retain the time bar introduced in rule XXIII of the YAR 2004 and the abolition of the 2 per cent commission on owners’ disbursements under YAR 2004. However, rule XXI now provides for interest on general average expenditure, sacrifices and allowances to be calculated at an annual rate of LIBOR plus 4 percentage points.

Rule XVII now permits adjusters to exclude low value cargoes from contribution to general average where the cost of inclusion would be likely to be disproportionate to its contribution.

 

Published by

Professor Simon Baughen

Professor Simon Baughen was appointed as Professor of Shipping Law in September 2013 (previously Reader at the University of Bristol Law School). Simon Baughen studied law at Oxford and practised in maritime law for several years before joining academia. His research interests lie mainly in the field of shipping law, but also include the law of trusts and the environmental law implications of the activities of multinational corporations in the developing world. Simon's book on Shipping Law, has run to seven editions (soon to be eight) and is already well-known to academics and students alike as by far the most learned and approachable work on the subject. Furthermore, he is now the author of the very well-established practitioner's work Summerskill on Laytime. He has an extensive list of publications to his name, including International Trade and the Protection of the Environment, and Human Rights and Corporate Wrongs - Closing the Governance Gap. He has also written and taught extensively on commercial law, trusts and environmental law. Simon is a member of the Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law, a University Research Centre within the School of Law, and he currently teaches at Swansea on the LLM in:Carriage of Goods by Sea, Land and Air; Charterparties Law and Practice; International Corporate Governance.

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