Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
THE EVOLUTION OF SHIP ARREST: STAKEHOLDERS’ VIEWS AND THE HONG KONG PARADIGM
Michael Tsimplis, *
Gary Lynch-Wood †
and Ming Chen ‡
A boom-and-bust cycle between 1971–2024 in the actions in rem filed at the Hong Kong Court is explained by using commercial and legal data as well as practitioners’ interviews in China, London, Piraeus, Singapore and Hong Kong. Ship arrest is considered an essential global arrangement that facilitates international trade and dispute resolution. Speed in ship arrest, security provision and release of the ship lead to the reduction of costs and indicate an efficient admiralty jurisdiction. Active management of ship arrests by the shipowners’ third-party liability insurers through the promotion of contractual security easily provided to appropriate claimants is a factor reducing the need for ship arrest. The PRC’s economic development created the boom in writs in rem. The development of competing PRC ports and the reduced cost of money are the main causes explaining the bust. Global interest rates, the number of ships and the number of containers handled in Hong Kong, together with an index of demand in shipping services, can account for 95 per cent of the variance. The vulnerability of the crew of the arrested ship suggests that compulsory insurance needs to be developed. The social, economic and environmental consequences of ship arrest suggest that an integrated view of ship arrest needs to be developed.
I. INTRODUCTION
This paper collects the views of legal practitioners around the world and combines them with economic and trade data to offer a unique examination of the evolution of ship arrest under the common law system of Hong Kong from 1971 through 2024. Hong Kong
* Professor of Law, City University of Hong Kong.
† Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Manchester.
‡ School of Law, City University of Hong Kong. Many thanks: to all practitioners who agreed to be interviewed; to Durussel Nadège and Chan Ming Yui Minerva for starting the original data collection; to Antonis Vakondios and George Gerassimou for conducting the interviews in London and Piraeus and providing comments on early drafts of the paper; and to Hui Tsing and Deborah Koh, for conducting the interviews in Singapore. We are grateful to Jim James and Judge Shuqin Li for commenting on the paper. The work in this paper was funded by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region, China Project GRF 9043463 “Improving Hong Kong’s Maritime Services: A Critical Assessment and Optimisation of Admiralty Enforcement Including Ship Arrest and Limitation of Liability Procedure”.
The following abbreviations are used:
Cap.4: (Hong Kong) High Court Ordinance.
Cap.4A: (Hong Kong) The Rules of the High Court.
The Evolution of Ship Arrest
245