Re - Appraising the Concept of Laytime in Charterparties

Abstract

Charterparty is an agreement between a shipowner and a charterer, wherein a ship or part of a vessel is hired or lease, for the carriage of goods by sea for a specific period. One of the most frequent challenges in the contract of carriage by sea is the issue of bearer of liability for delay in loading or unloading of the goods from the chartered ship. Despite the introduction of several uniform forms to address the challenge of accurately construing time, the problem remain unabated as the sailing of vessels on sea are delayed or impeded by various unprecedented and often times uncontrollable factors. Faced with unanticipated delay either in the loading or unloading of the cargo, the crisis of who as between the shipowner or charterer bears the liability thereof becomes inevitable. It is the position of this paper that the introduction of an extension of time clause, good knowledge of the ports concerned and an elegance drafting of the agreement would reduce the friction of liability for delay in carriage at sea.