A shipowner has successfully made a claim against its vessel manager after a ballast water discharge error off the US.
Insurer International Transport Intermediaries Club (ITIC) warned that failure to keep a proper onboard record of regulatory and legislative changes can have costly consequences for shipowners and their intermediaries.
The claim arose when the crew of an unnamed ship that frequently traded to US ports found itself in contravention of state legislation when they conducted deballasting operations en route to California more than 50 nautical miles out from the coast.
"Such an operation had been permissible - and had indeed been performed by the crew - under the regulations in force when the ship had previously traded to California," ITIC said.
"But, on this occasion, such deballasting was in violation of new regulations which had entered into force in July 2017, requiring ships entering from international waters to deballast more than 200 nautical miles from the coast of California."
The Californian authorities had disseminated this change by way of circulars and information had also been published by the ship’s P&I club, but the change had not been not picked up by the ship’s manager.
The master admitted to Californian authorities that the crew were not aware of the change in legislation, and the authorities fined the owner $280,000.
ITIC got this down to $215,000, which the owner claimed from the manager on the basis that it should have been aware of the change.
