Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
INTERNATIONAL LEGISLATION
AUSTRALIA
Western Australian Marine Act Amendment Act 1978. The amendments are designed in conjunction with amendments to the Police Act to provide for control of offences taking place in offshore areas of Western Australia’s coast. The Minister has power to declare that provisions of the Act relating to non-commercial craft should be applicable to any craft which he may specify in an order; This overcomes an anomaly whereby visiting vessels operating in Western Australian waters were outside the jurisdiction of this State and not liable for breaches of the law.
(1978) 4 C.L.B. 820.
Workers’ Compensation Act Amendment Act. The principal Act has been amended to provide for:
- (i) compensation for workers under State awards who are injured outside Western Australia’s territorial limits;
- (ii) the establishment of a supplementary Workers’ Compensation Board designed to clear up the backlog of claims;
- (iii) a new method of assessing premiums by removing the present ceiling of $50
- per week per worker and replacing it with a method based on gross earnings;
- (iv) changes in the lump-sum payment system to ensure that injury payments are
- at the rate applying at the time of the accident. The amendment follows a ruling by the High Court that the lump-sum payment was that applicable as at the date of election rather than that fixed by the date of the accident;
- (v) the inclusion of a former, divorced wife, who is still legally dependant on the
- worker, under the definition of “wife or widow”;
- (vi) clarification of the situation in respect of workers engaged in concurrent contracts of service.
- (1978) 4 C.L.B. 812.
BANGLADESH
Asian Reinsurance Corporation Ordinance 1978 (No. XXVII of 1978). This Ordinance provides for the implementation of the Agreement establishing the Asian Reinsurance Corporation to which Bangladesh is a signatory. The Agreement as set out in the Schedule thereto shall have the force of law in Bangladesh and empowers the Government to take such steps and make such necessary arrangements as it may consider necessary to enable it to discharge its financial obligations and other liabilities under the Agreement.
The salient stipulations of the Agreement are as under:
- (i) the Asian Reinsurance Corporation shall enjoy immunity from every form of legal process and the property and assets of the Corporation located in a member country shall be immune from all forms of seizure, attachment, expropriation, execution and any other form of interference whether by executive, administrative, judicial or legislative action;
- (ii) in disputes arising out of, or in connection with, the exercise of the Corporation of its activities in transacting reinsurance business, or out of, or in connection with, the sale or purchase of real property, legal action may be brought against the Corporation in the Court of Administrative Agency of competent jurisdiction. However, in such cases the property and assets of the Corporation shall enjoy the immunity referred to in (i) above, prior to the delivery of the final judgment against the Corporation; and
- (iii) provisions for immunities and facilities for representatives of member States in the Council of Members, the staff of the Corporation and its consultants.
- (1978) 4 C.L.B. 814.
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