business areas

maritime

ENS’ (Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs) maritime team offers legal services to our wide range of clients in the maritime industry.  We provide solutions directed at avoiding or minimising loss as well as the recovery of losses encountered in the business of shipping.  We focus on achieving results in the most commercially sensible and effective way.

Our team handles a wide range of maritime matters, including disputes centred around the ship and her operation (arrests, attachments, judicial sales, collisions, damage and loss of life caused by a ship, charterparty disputes and the like) as well as matters loosely described as being connected with cargo (damage or loss of cargo, cases concerning containers, advice to clearing and forwarding agents and other ships agents).

Our maritime unit operates out of three centres, namely Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg, although when necessary we consult, investigate or run matters in any of the other South African jurisdictions.  Our Durban-based work is concentrated on matters involving vessels calling at the ports of Durban and Richards Bay, whilst the Cape Town members of the unit represent the interests of clients based in that part of the country and act in proceedings emanating from the Cape of Good Hope Provincial Division of the High Court.  Many of the clients served by the department are based in Gauteng and we believe that having members of our team based at the Sandton office enables us to offer our specialised expertise in a field which is not traditionally considered a focus for Johannesburg law firms.

Apart from these strictly maritime areas of practice, there are also traditionally a variety of other matters which are of interest to clients doing business within the maritime industry.  In particular, the fishing industry has always been closely allied to shipping, for obvious reasons, and we have significant and relevant experience in this area.

Our team is well positioned to advise on fishing matters in general, both in relation to fishing rights and as regards the commercial, funding, infrastructural and transactional aspects of the fishing industry.  Vessel finance is another area of practice in which our experience is invaluable to risk management for clients in the maritime sector.

We are also assist clients with all aspects of lending transactions and securitisation in the maritime industry and have extensive experience in local and cross-border banking, structured finance, derivatives and asset management transactions.  We also have experience in foreclosure work for South African banks including ship arrests, attachment, judicial sales, lending and security work.

In addition, our tax department has experience in advising on the financing of vessels as well as the tax issues involved in respect of cross-border shipping operations.  The tax department is also able to provide detailed advice on many of the specific areas of practice set out below, such as trade finance, import and export trade and joint enterprise agreements.

Our areas of practice include:

•  Enforcement of maritime claims by arrest
• Representation of the interests of mortgagees
• Security arrests relating to proceedings to be instituted outside of the Republic
• Associated ship arrests
• Judicial sale of vessels and other property, in terms of the Admiralty Jurisdiction Regulation Act
• Distribution of the proceeds of public auctions of vessels and other property
• Defeating claims against ship owners and charterers
• Ship owners claims for wrongful arrest
• Matters relating to bills of lading and charterparties
• Collisions, salvage and towage
• Personal injury and death claims for seamen and their dependants
• Sale and purchase of ships
• Litigation relating to marine insurance claims
• Litigation concerning damage to cargo
• Matters involving cargo undergoing land-based transportation, including by road and rail
• Cases concerning containers
• Advice to clearing and forwarding agents and other ships agents
• Drafting standard terms and conditions
• Preparation of commercial agreements
• Advising Government on maritime issues
• Advising Government on and participating in the formulation of fishing rights allocation policies
• Applications for fishing rights
• Fishing rights appeals and review proceedings
• Mining enterprises at sea
• Joint enterprise agreements
• Trade finance
• Import and export trade
• Ship building agreements
• Purchase and sale of ships
• Ship finance
• Tax
  

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