Studies Of Legal Problems In Ship Repairs

In recent 10-odd years, the domestic ship-repairing market is bullish and ship-repairing industry has been developed considerably, which not only can be reflected by the booming momentum of existing dockyards developing in a large scale but also can be seen from the newly established ship repairing enterprises. On this basis, the shipyards pay much attention to the repair quality and their service quality, in addition to the factor of low cost on ship repairing, more and more foreign ship owners have their ships repaired in China. Such situation shall on the one hand promote the development of domestic ship repairing industry and shall also result in some legal problems on the other hand. First of all, if the management in the shipyards can not keep up with the pace of business expansion, consequences arising from fatal fire, casualties, environmental pollution or other accidents may occur frequently. Secondly, with the increase of ship-repairing business, disputes arising in performing contract increase. Thirdly, some new problems occur in ship repairs, therefore, the relevant laws and regulations can not meet the requirements in ship repairing market. Finally, there are few standard contracts concerning ship repairs. Many contracts formulated by ship repairing enterprises are not standardized therefore can not include all the matters arising in ship repairs. This article shall make studies on legal problems occurring in ship repairs. By explaining some detailed cases, this article emphatically studies the risks and obligations in ship repairs, the loopholes and vacancies in laws and regulations for preventing cheat and falseness as well the lien of ship repairers and ship lien precedence in compensation. The author has made investigations to the problems occurring in the practice of ship repairs and demonstrated the above-mentioned problems after consulting relevant materials and give some suggestions and opinions about amendment to Maritime Law and Special Procedure Law of Maritime Actions as well as about improving contracts and management so as to solve these problems.