Last week saw the inaugural lectures taking place in Singapore and London of the bi-monthly series collaboration between the Baltic and Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers. To kick off the series, invited presenters, Andrew Jamieson of ITIC and Robert Voelzer of AAL, took to the stage to give operations and broking colleagues from Baltic member companies a masterclass on “Expensive mistakes and how to avoid them.”

Andrew Jamieson highlighted the importance of the Baltic Code, which is often lauded as best practice at arbitration, specifically citing the clause that places responsibility on the broker, when acting with an unknown principal, to take ‘reasonable steps’ to obtain background and the reputation, when fixing a charterparty.

Further tips to the 150 members attending included, how to identify if in legal terms, your principal’s parent company is actually liable as a guarantor or not, to a charterparty. Did, you know for example, that if a contract is guaranteed but later then amended, any guarantee in place is voided unless fresh authority is once again obtained from a parent company.

Aside from technical and legal hurdles that younger as well as more experienced broking teams encounter, Mr Jamieson highlighted that the largest number of enormously expensive mistakes crossing his desk, actually come from seemingly minor detail checking errors. He also drew attention to the rising number of fraudulent attacks being seen to result in losses and sent a strong warning to be wary of intercept emails appearing to come from a known counterpart.

The Lunchtime Lecture Series aims to develop broader understanding of general industry issues. The next lecture will focus on the rise of chartering power from BRICS nations, which regions to expect shipping business expansion and how this will impact shipping firms. “West Looks East” will be at 1300 (in London and Singapore) on the 29 November. Please click here for more information. 

Email membership@ics.org.uk to register.