Archive

BY MONICA DOBIE
PHANTOM ships may become less common on the high seas because of a Commonwealth-based law dating back to 1906, that was recently invoked for the first time in a Hong Kong court.

Section 44 of the Chinese territory’s Marine Insurance Act (MIA) says that a theft liability risk does not attach to a ship’s cargo if the ship’s managers had no intention from the outset of sailing to an agreed destination; it was used to defeat insurance claims made against mainland-China based and state-owned defendant China Insurance Company Limited by the owner of missing cargo worth US$2.5 million aboard the merchant vessel, the Pacifica.…

Keith Nuthall
A GLOBAL questionnaire has been launched by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, (UNCITRAL), which wants to kick start efforts to create a UN convention on insurance liability during multi-modal transportation.

The UN agency has pointed out that despite the huge growth in container movements (from zero in 1965 to 225.3 million in 2000), there is still no global set of rules governing responsibility for cargo carried by combined transport involving ships, rail and roads.…

KEITH NUTHALL
PROPOSED European Union legislation on guaranteeing a minimum level of compensation for air passengers who are denied boarding, will cover package tours as well as scheduled flights, the EU Council of Ministers has agreed. EU officials have been told to draw up a detailed agreement on the proposals incorporating this principle.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission formally proposed a law today (Tuesday) insisting that all airlines operating in EU airspace should be obliged to carry insurance for 250,000 so-called special drawing rights per passenger (about Pounds 200,000) against their liability for death or injury.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union is to ban most travellers arriving in the EU from bringing personal imports of meat, meat products, milk or milk products, on their person or in their luggage, unless accompanied by veterinary documentation. Only travellers arriving from Greenland, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and eastern European countries applying to be EU members (barring Turkey) will be exempt.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament’s environment committee has tabled amendments to a proposed directive limiting sulphur content in fuels that would set January 1, 2009, as the final date after which the maximum sulphur content of all petrol and diesel sold for non-mobile plant and machinery should not exceed 10 mg/kg.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
DJIBOUTI’S government has signed a management contract with Dubai Ports International Authority to run the east African country’s international airport, the UN has reported. The Gulf authority is to improve the airport’s services and infrastructure and reform its fee structure and collection.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
CYCLE repairers in the UK will have to wait another 12 months before finding out if the European Commission intends to expand a reduced rate of VAT scheme that is currently enjoyed by only a handful of Member States.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE GREEK government is being taken to the European Court of Justice over its insistence that lorry drivers should pay registration taxes in Greece to use their vehicle temporarily in that country, even if it is registered in another EU Member State.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has cleared the way for Spain to restart subsidising investments by its hauliers into buying or hire-purchasing new lorries and vans.

Annulling a decision made by the European Commission in 1998 that blocked Madrid from helping haulage operators pay the interest on loans they raise for new vehicles, judges said Brussels was wrong to brand these payments as illegal state aid.…