| A time charterparty is a contract which is negotiated in a free market,subject to the principle of freedom of contract.The charterer’s payment obligations under payment of hire clause is the core of time charterparty.Discharging of the charterparty is the shipowner’s most powerful weapon to protect his or her interests in the event of default of the charterer.When the charterer violates the clause of hire payment,and fail to punctual and regular payment of hire,whether the shipowner can discharge from performance of all outstanding obligations under the contract,and what the basis,conditions and exercising manner of discharging the contract directly relates to the vital interests of both parties,and even bona fide third parties consignee,and therefore it has been the focus of the theoretical and practical circles,and even the British courts’position on the issue of discharging of the contract under the clause of payment of hire has repeated.This paper combines charter and judicial practice,especially analyzes the evolution of the jurisprudence on the issue that the payment of hire is condition or intermediate term in the UK in recent years,integrates the use of research methods as history of law,comparative law and case analysis,analyzes systematicly the issues of shipowners’ right of discharging the contract when the charterer violates payment of hire clause,aimes at clarifying the legal nature of payment of hire clause,clarifies the legal basis,conditions,manners and the legal consequences for the shipowner to exercise the right to discharge the contract.The paper is divided into three parts:introduction,body and conclusion.The body part includes four chapters of which the main contents are as follows:Chapter 1 discusses the statutory basis of the shipowner’s right to discharge the contract.This chapter focuses on the development process from the "termism" to"consequentialism" on contract dissolution system in English law,and also analyzes the legal basis of the shipowner’s discharging of the contract under the legal framework,which provides the basis for further discussion below.Chapter 2 examines the exercise of the shipowner’s right to discharge the contract under the clauses of hire payment.This chapter first analyzes the conditions that the shipowner exercises the right to discharge the contract,then discusses the manner of the shipowner’s discharge of the contract under two different forms:anticipatory breach of contract and breach of contract,and last studies the obligation to notify when the shipowner exercises the right to discharge the contract.Chapter 3 analyzes the issue of the shipowner’s limitation and loss of rights to discharge the contract.This chapter first clarifies the reason why limits the shipowner’s right to discharge the contract,then explores the restrictions of the shipowner’s right to discharge the contract from the anti-technicality clause of charterparty and suspension of contractual obligations,and at last introduces the cases of the shipowner’s loss of the rights to discharge the contract,from the United Kingdom law and different perspectives of Chinese law,and analyzes the legal basis of the loss of the right to discharge the contract.Chapter 4 studies the legal consequences of the shipowner’s discharging of the contract.This chapter combines English cases,discusses the question of compensation of the damage caused when the shipowner discharges the contract,and explores the handling problem of the cargo at that time. |
