According to a recent Safety4Sea report, BIMCO has developed its own standard Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) based on ship sale and purchase.
The MOA takes shape
The MOA is rapidly taking shape, as they had already been held three meetings of the expert group. The most recent one was at the offices of Louis Dreyfus in Paris, on 27 January 2020.
Standard S&P agreement
As the association believes, not having a standard S&P agreement of its own is a major gap for its document library. By re-thinking MOAs, the group goals to provide a more clearly worded and chronologically structured agreement in comparison to other forms that are currently in use.
BIMCO’s “trademark” box layout
The new MOA will have BIMCO’s “trademark” box layout front sheet summarising all the key contractual information such as
- ship details,
- deposit,
- purchase price,
- inspection places and dates and
- delivery notices.
The sequence of clauses follows the timing of events in a ship sale and purchase, so the contract is easy to read and follow, as BIMCO noted.
Feedback from industry
During the meetings, the drafting group has worded the contract as clearly and unambiguously as possible. BIMCO’s next goal now is to invite feedback from the industry, ensuring that the contract is fitting with the parties’ need of selling and buying ships.
“Getting feedback from potential users of the new form is vital to ensure the industry gets a product that matches its needs when buying and selling ships, and plans are underway to hold public consultation events in Copenhagen and Athens in March and then further afield afterwards.”
…BIMCO continued.
The expert group
For the records, the expert group is led by Francis Sarre, chairman of BIMCO’s Documentary Committe and consists Antoine Person, Louis Dreyfus Armateurs; Basil Logothetis, Empros Lines Shipping; Catherine Lessow, Oldendorff; John Varley, Arrow Shipbroking Group; Christoph Bruhn, Bruhn Shipbrokers; Kasper Holm-Hemmingsen, Maersk Broker; Michael Hope, NORTH P&I Club; Matt Hannaford, Hannaford Turner LLP; and Jens Mathiasen, Gorrissen Federspiel. BIMCO support staff are Soren Larsen, Grant Hunter and Anna Wollin.
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Source: Safety4Sea
