In May 2003 a Supplementary (‘third tier’) Fund was established at the IMO via a new Protocol that will boost the quantity of compensation in States that ratify it to about US$1,160 million (including the amounts paid under the 1992 CLC and Fund Convention). The result could be that exactly where the ship is bareboat chartered and its management is entrusted by the charterer to a manager, there would be 3 persons who need to retain insurance or other financial safety, thereby tripling the insurance charges: a outcome that beneath the CLC has been avoided by channelling the liability to the registered owner.
Secondly, if, for example, the ship is bareboat chartered and pursuant to the charter celebration the owner is liable for bunker oil pollution damage — which would make sense, due to the fact the owner is required to sustain insurance or other monetary security to cover liability for pollution damage — claimants would nonetheless be entitled to bring a claim against the bareboat charterer, who apparently 17 is not needed to preserve insurance or financial security.
In order to address the imbalance developed by the establishment of the Supplementary Fund amongst the shipping and oil industries, two voluntary agreements where introduced by the International Group of P&I Clubs: the Tiny Tanker Oil Pollution Indemnification Agreement (STOPIA) 2006, and the Tanker Oil Pollution Indemnification Agreement (TOPIA) 2006, which entered into force on 20 February 2006.
Given that 1998, Parties to the 1992 Protocol ceased to be Parties to CLC 1969, mainly because the new, revised Convention took its location. The actions introduced just before the Courts of the US, which is not a Celebration to the IMO civil liability Conventions, have been in general unsuccessful. The necessary legal elements of the international regime established by the 1992 CLC can be summarized as follows.
Instead the explanation why in the CLC and in the HNS Convention the definition is restricted to the registered owner is that of channelling the liability to the registered owner only. This is to certify that there is in force in respect of the above-named ship a policy of insurance or other economic security satisfying the specifications of Report VII of the International convention on civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage, 1969. IN WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned getting duly authorized by their respective Governments for that goal have signed the present Convention.
