Study On Arrest And Auction Of Ships In Shipping Company’s Bankruptcy

The bankruptcy of shipping enterprise is regulated by both bankruptcy law system and maritime law system.The conflict of the two legal systems leads to many problems in the arrest and auction of ships.The thesis tries to comb through the provisions of the relevant law,sorting out the problems arising from practices,analyzing the causes of the problems,and puts forward solutions to the problems.The first chapter of this thesis analyzes the causes of the issues of arrest and auction of ships in shipping company’s bankruptcy,which is the conflict between the bankruptcy law system and maritime law system.The concrete embodiment of the problem includes: the legitimacy of ship arrest in bankruptcy of shipping enterprise,whether the maritime court has the exclusive jurisdiction over the arrest and auction of ship in bankruptcy procedure and the registration and compensation after the auction.And then the thesis put forward the solution to the problem from the perspective of balance of legal interests.Chapter two focuses on the legitimacy of ship arrest and auction in the bankruptcy of shipping enterprises.In view of this problem,explanations are made in the Meeting Summary of the National Court Forum on Foreign-related Commercial and Maritime Trials in 2021.In this chapter,the author distinguishes between arrest and auction in preservation and implementation program,and respectively analyzes if the ship should be released under both circumstances and how to guarantee the priority of maritime lien,possessory lien on vessel and mortgage at the same time.Also,the chapter analyzes the rationality and shortcomings of the meeting summary.In addition,the chapter also discusses how to pay off the custody expenses incurred during the period of ship arrest.Chapter three analyzes who can arrest and auction a ship in bankruptcy proceedings.After the ship is taken over by the bankruptcy administrator,the administrator can either dispose of the ship by himself or by means of judicial auction.When the ship needs to be disposed of by judicial auction,the bankruptcy court can entrust the maritime court to arrest and auction the ship.Chapter four discusses the distribution of the proceeds of a ship in bankruptcy procedure,including the issues of the authority of distributing the proceeds,registering the creditors’ rights and the priority of the creditors’ rights in distributing the proceeds of ship.It is proposed that the creditors register their rights with the bankruptcy administrator in principle,and the claims shall be divided into secured claims and unsecured claims.Secured maritime claims shall have priority in payment of the price of the ship,while unsecured maritime claims shall,together with other ordinary claims of the bankrupt enterprise,be paid out of the balance of the price of the ship and other properties of the bankrupt enterprise.