Green light to Maritime Shipping Law
July 25, 2014 saw the publication in the Official State Gazette of Maritime Shipping Law 14/2014, of July 24, 2014, which will enter into force two months after it is published, that is, on September 25, 2014.
The Law, which seeks to boost the strength of Spanish firms in the global maritime market and to provide legal certainty to all users of maritime shipping, updates the legal regime governing the industry and resolves the contradictions existing between international conventions and the former Spanish law, while seeking to bring Spanish law into line with international maritime law and to reflect actual practices in current maritime shipping.
After three attempts at reform in three consecutive legislatures, approval has finally been given to a text with major repercussions for the entire maritime industry in Spain, an industry that encompasses activities such as maritime shipping, ship construction, auxiliary maritime engineering and industries, fisheries and maritime aquaculture, the pleasure craft industry, sports marinas and ports, insurers, the navy, ports and port services and maritime services of all kinds.
Accordingly, the new legislation not only expressly repeals, among other legal provisions, Book III of the Commercial Code, the 1893 Ship Mortgage Law and the 1949 Law on the carriage of goods by sea under a bill of lading, but also seeks to supplement, exhaustively, together with other public international laws (such as the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea), domestic public law (such as the Revised State Ports and Merchant Navy Law) and other private laws, and the legal situations and relationships that arise in connection with maritime shipping.
The new Law regulates, among other points of interest, the administrative oversight of shipping, shipping instruments, vehicles and subjects, the various maritime shipping contracts and rules on the liability of carriers of goods, ancillary shipping contracts, shipping accidents, marine insurance, and certain special procedural features in this field of law.
For more information, readers are invited to click on the link to the Commentary published recently by the Transport & Shipping Industry on the Maritime Shipping Law.
Garrigues Maritime and Transportation Department
