In the first installment of our two-part series, international trade lawyers, Mike Lowell and Justin Angotti, and antitrust lawyers, Ed Schwartz and Michaela Westrup, team up to explore the antitrust risks that companies face related to tariffs. They discuss key themes and issues facing companies operating in the U.S. and Europe, and provide insights on what might be coming down the track on tariffs.

Reed Smith partners Tallat Hussain and Nick Austin and counsel Julie Vaughan discuss the evolving landscape of emissions trading systems (ETS) and their impact on the maritime sector. Key topics include the EU ETS, the International Maritime Organization’s carbon intensity rating scheme, and the UK government’s proposal to extend its ETS to maritime emissions. They explore the implications for shipping entities and the potential for monetizing emissions reductions in the sector. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Trading Straits brings legal and business insights at the intersection of the shipping and energy sectors. This podcast series offers trends, developments, challenges and topics of interest from Reed Smith litigation, regulatory and finance laws across our network of global offices. If you have any questions about the topics discussed on this podcast, please do contact our speakers.  Julie: Hello everyone and welcome back to Trading Straits. I'm Julie Vaughan, environmental counsel in the Energy and Natural Resources team at Reed Smith in London. I'm joined today by my colleagues Tallat Hussain, an environmental lawyer, and Nick Austin, a shipping lawyer, both partners based in our London office. In this podcast today, we'll be firstly recapping where things stand with implementing the EU emissions trading system for the maritime sector, including looking ahead to some changes that are approaching, and also touching on the role of the IMO, the International Monetary Organization's Carbon Intensity Rating Scheme and some challenges that it's facing. And then secondly, we're going to talk about the recent proposal by the UK government to extend the UK's emissions trading system that operates in Great Britain post-Brexit to also include maritime emissions. We'll be discussing some of the key features of that proposal and also potential international implications. So Nick, if we could come to you first, perhaps you could give us an overview of the current EU maritime ETS and highlight some of its central points for us.  Nick: Yeah, I mean, last year we were talking on previous episodes of Trading Straits about changes to the EU ETS and its extension to shipping last year during the fourth phase of the EU ETS scheme running until 2030. And by way of recap, what has happened is that the maritime sector has been brought in to the scope of EU ETS, the wider EU ETS from the 1st of January last year, initially for ships, commercial ships of more than 5,000 gross tonnes. And listeners of this podcast will remember that what ETS does is impose obligations on the so-called shipping companies who have needed to set up new compliance procedures, open accounts, and ultimately buy and surrender EU allowances annually to cover emissions from voyages which are caught within the scope of the scheme. So I think my sense is that it remains a really big show in town, and it's having a significant impact in the sector, not the least of which, of course, is cost. And we've been working with clients on all of the mechanics of that, from setting up the accounts, making necessary registrations, negotiating charter clauses to suit the needs of owners and charterers. And I think that will continue throughout 2025, because, in fact, this year heralds a couple of new developments for EU ETS in shipping. First from January of this year, the 1st of January, the scope of EU ETS will expand further to include offshore vessels over 5,000 tonnes, which are calling it EU ports. And I think new challenges are remaining for the vessels which have been subject to the ETS already since 2024 in what I would call the next stage of compliance. And that means that the emissions data for the 2024 year has to be reported on and verified by an accredited verifier by the 31st of March this year, just some weeks away. And ship owners and operators then have a further six months until the 30th of September to submit the correct number, hopefully correct number,

A new generation of barcodes is enabling faster, safer and more transparent transactions across industries and regions. In this episode, Nicolas Frerejean, director of marketing and digital transformation at GS1, the global standards organization behind barcodes, tells Reed Smith partner Wim Vandenberghe how the next generation of barcodes can offer even more information and benefits to consumers, businesses and regulators. He shares fascinating examples of how barcodes are used in retail, healthcare, food, construction and other sectors. Whether you are a manufacturer, a retailer, a consumer or a policy maker, you will find this podcast insightful and informative. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Trading Straits brings legal and business insights at the intersection of the shipping and energy sectors. This podcast series offers trends, developments, challenges and topics of interest from Reed Smith litigation, regulatory and finance laws across our network of global offices. If you have any questions about the topics discussed on this podcast, please do contact our speakers.  Wim: Hello and welcome to Trading Straits. My name is Wim Vandenberghe and I am a EU regulatory product lawyer in the Brussels office of Reed Smith. With me on today's podcast we have Nicolas Frerejean who is the Global Director of Marketing and Digital Transformation at GS1. Nicolas, thanks first of all for participating in our podcast on the global supply chain and what the role barcodes in GS1 play in there. Maybe to kick off, could you just please tell us a little bit about yourself and GS1?  Nicolas: Yeah, hello, Wim, and hello to everyone. Thank you for receiving me to this podcast. Really excited to be able to spend a few minutes talking about GS1. Myself, I'm from Belgium. My name is Nicolas Frerejean, and I've been working for the last five years at GS1, managing deployment of all our global marketing initiatives across our local organizations. And what is GS1? That's a great question to start. GS1 is really a global standards organization. We are a neutral, not-for-profit organization, and I guess we are best known for one of our iconic products, which is the barcode. The barcode has been named by the BBC as one of the top 15 inventions that made the world economy. And this is one of the icons that we do behind this. We actually do develop global open standards to facilitate and to help the exchange of data across industries and across trading partners in the supply chain.  Wim: Excellent. We're very happy, you know, that you could carve out some time today with us, Nicolas. And then I think you touched already on, you know, kind of the first question that I had about what the impact of barcodes has been, you know, for the last five decades, because they've been around for quite a while. And you've said it has been an amazing invention and really critical to the global economy. And I'm just wondering how you see that impact from the past, but also looking ahead into the future, what is coming next for barcodes as well?  Nicolas: Yeah, the barcode was actually introduced for the first time 50 years ago. That was in 1974. and the very first product that was count was a chewing gum pack in Ohio in the United States. The barcode really changed the way consumers check out at the point of sale and by enabling to identify a product and connect that product to its digital identity we've been able to connect the product to its price and make sure that we can make supermarket queues a lot shorter make the checkout process faster. And then also over time, we've grown the use of the barcodes to help making supply chain much more efficient and to help the management of inventory, stock the fulfillment at distribution centers. Now, the barcode, as I've said before, has already been around for 50 years. And while it will still be around for many years, we are starting to work on what we call the next-generation barcode. And we are starting to work

Reed Smith partners Nick Austin and Alex Brandt explore today’s challenges faced by the shipping industry and discuss key areas where we are likely to see the most activity in 2025, including sanctions, decarbonisation and legal developments in the courts. ----more---- Transcript:  Intro: Trading Straits brings legal and business insights at the intersection of the shipping and energy sectors. This podcast series offers trends, developments, challenges and topics of interest from Reed Smith litigation, regulatory and finance laws across our network of global offices. If you have any questions about the topics discussed on this podcast, please do contact our speakers. Nick: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Trading Straits. I'm Nick Austin, a partner in the shipping team at Reed Smith in London. I'm joined today by my friend and colleague, Alex Brandt, who's also a partner in the London shipping team. Alex and I both have the privilege, some would say, of working in an industry, the shipping industry, which is heavily impacted by markets, geopolitics, technological change, decarbonisation, and a raft of legal and regulatory changes, and no more so, I think, than now. So in this podcast, we're going to be looking in broad terms at what 2025 might hold in some of these areas. And with a particular eye on where as lawyers we're likely to see the most activity. We don't have a crystal ball, and we can't possibly cover everything today, but we do think there will be some themes that will continue to emerge throughout the year. So, Alex, if I can come to you first, I mean, I know that you spend, some would say, indecent amounts of time advising clients on sanctions in the maritime and commodities world. Russia has, of course, dominated the headlines in that regard. How do you see 2025 developing? Alex: Yeah, thanks, Nick. And it's nice to be back on Trading Straits. Yeah, well, look, as you say, 2024 was a big year for sanctions. And I think there were a couple of key themes that developed. The G7 really continued to clamp down on the trade and the transport of Russian oil. And I think having come up with a novel scheme, the G7 price cap, which allowed the carriage of Russian oil and support for that trade, albeit under sort of you know attestations and a regulated process what had happened from that was the emergence of the shadow fleet which is obviously dominated not just the trade news but but you know international news and particularly events going on in the baltic at the moment and so really you had this castle mouse game with the regulators concerned with the monster they'd created with the shadow fleet and trying to cut down on circumvention and that that really sort of you saw that in two ways. One is the guidance around the sale of tankers trying to stop vessels going into the shadow fleets. And the second is the increasing sanctioning of. Dark fleet, shadow fleet, parallel fleet actors, vessels, trading houses that have emerged in certain jurisdictions who are seen by the G7 as facilitating breaches of price cap and keeping that Russian oil flowing at levels that the G7 are uncomfortable with. So that's what 2024 was really framed by. 2025 from the sanctions landscape has already started with a bang. We had on the 10th of January, 183 more vessels designated by the US, a significant focus on Middle Eastern trading houses, focus on LNG projects by the US as well, and critically. Two large oil producers in Russia, Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas. We were only in the first month of January. Hard to know exactly where we'll end up with the Trump administration, But it's certainly the case, I think, that the first half of 2025 is going to see more of the same, more of a tightening on Russian oil, more of a tightening on circumvention, continued concern with the threat that the parallel fleet poses, not just from a sanctions perspective, but also safety environment. And now with this sort of the suggestion of sab

Drones can deliver goods faster, cheaper and more sustainably than traditional methods. But how are they shaping the global supply market and what are the benefits and challenges of using them? Reed Smith partners Laura-May Scott and Gregory Speier discuss the current state and future trends of the drone delivery market, the key drivers and barriers of its growth, and the legal and regulatory implications of this emerging industry. This podcast is part of the From A2B: Decoding the global supply chain series, where Reed Smith lawyers share insights on the latest developments and issues affecting the transportation sector.  ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Trading Straits brings legal and business insights at the intersection of the shipping and energy sectors. This podcast series offers trends, developments, challenges and topics of interest from Reed Smith litigation, regulatory and finance laws across our network of global offices. If you have any questions about the topics discussed on this podcast, please do contact our speakers.  Laura-May: Hello and welcome to the Reed Smith podcast channel, Trading Straits. My name is Laura-May Scott, and I'm a disputes partner at Reed Smith, working out of London.  Gregory: And I am Greg Speier, a partner in the transportation industry group at Reed Smith, working out of our Princeton, New Jersey office. Today, we will be exploring how technology and innovation are transforming the world of logistics and transportation. Specifically, we will talk about one of the most exciting and also controversial developments in the delivery industry; drones.  Laura-May: So drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, are flying machines that can be remotely controlled or programmed to perform certain tasks, such as surveillance, photography, or delivery. In recent years, drones have been increasingly used by couriers and e-commerce companies to deliver goods faster, cheaper, and often more sustainably than traditional methods. Today, we will uncover how drones are shaping the global supply market and what the benefits and challenges are of using them.  Gregory: Yep, that's true. And we definitely have a lot to get through today. And it's really fascinating to see how drones are transforming the delivery industry overall. And, you know, this is all new. You know, the drone delivery market is still very new. It's in its infancy, but it's growing so fast. It's growing rapidly. And according to a 2023 study conducted by market research platform, Markets and Markets, the current state of global drone logistics and transportation is expected to reach $16.1 billion, that's US dollars, by 2030. So in about five years, it's going to be a $16.1 billion industry. And that's up from not even $1 billion last year.  Laura-May: Yeah, I mean, that's a compound annual growth rate of over 50%. It's huge.  Gregory: Yep, absolutely. Huge is right. And so what is the main driver behind this growth? It's cheaper, there's more convenient delivery market options, especially in certain industries. Think about e-commerce, healthcare, agriculture, mining. You have all of these industries that are demanding, you know, cheaper, faster, more convenient delivery market options. And then also that's coupled with technological advancements, the hardware, the software, the infrastructure, and all of the largest players right now, the big ticket retailers, they all want to be delivering products by drone, and many are already doing so.  Laura-May: Exactly that. And as a result of that growth, we're seeing key trends coming out of the market. And I'd have to say that the first and most obvious one to me is the development of more sophisticated and autonomous drones as we see the technology develop in the way that you've described, Greg. There's the integration of other drones with other modes of transportation, such as trucks, trains, or ships working together with drones to deliver things. And obviously, there's also the emergenc

Reed Smith associates Emma Weeden and Charles Sauvage explore the impact of the Consortia Block Exemption Regulation's (CBER) expiry on the liner shipping industry and evaluate the potential of the Specialization Block Exemption Regulation (SBER) as a replacement. They also discuss the resulting changes, including legal adjustments, compliance considerations and the future landscape for competition, innovation and sustainability. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Trading Straits brings legal and business insights at the intersection of the shipping and energy sectors. This podcast series offers trends, developments, challenges and topics of interest from Reed Smith litigation, regulatory and finance lawyers across our network of global offices. If you have any questions about the topics discussed on this podcast, please do contact our speakers.  Emma: Welcome to the Trading Straits podcast. Today, me Emma Weeden and my colleague Charles Sauvage from Reed Smith's London and Brussels office will be talking to you about the consortia block exemption regulation. So the Consortia Block Exemption Regulation actually expired in April and it applied to container shipping lines to allow them to collaborate on space and their sailings. Today we're going to be talking about the implications of that law expiring and how shipping consortia will work going forward. So to start off with, we should talk a little bit about what shipping consortia are. These are shipping lines that jointly cooperate in the provision of container services. These cooperations are in respect of sharing space on vessels. This can be done through highly integrated consortia using vessel sharing agreements or simply by slot charter agreements. This is exchanging slots on vessels. The features of consortia are that they share capacity to create regular weekly sailings for each line's clients. Where consortia cooperate across trades, these are known as alliances. It's important to note that these aren't conferences. So shipping conferences were abolished in 2008 and these allowed lines to collaborate on price and capacity. Here we're talking about collaborations in relation to capacity only. Today, the consortia that are often talked about are the large East-West alliances. Here, most of the world's top 10 lines participate in one of three alliances, the Alliance, 2M, and the Ocean Alliance. However, there are a lot more consortia than just these three alliances. These big alliances are famous because they operate on the world's largest trades. However, it's important to remember that there are other small consortia and alliances. They operate north-south and they operate regionally. In the Med, for example, there are lots of smaller lines operating in consortia and they shouldn't be forgotten. So what did the consortia block exemption do? So a good place to start is what are block exemptions? So block exemptions allow businesses to carry out and collaborate on activities that would usually be caught by competition law. So what did the consortia block exemption let lines do? So this regulation was introduced in 1995 and renewed in 2014 and 2020. And it specifically allows shipping liner companies to form consortia and operate a joint service on vessels and share port facilities under certain conditions so the main condition in this was that the lines together wouldn't have a market share of over 30 percent and the period of the agreement and lock-in had to be limited the agreement also had to not have any hardcore restrictions you can't do things like price fix or market share and and it's also worth noting that when the UK left the European Union it adopted the consortia block exemption regulation. The benefits of this law were that it facilitated these consortia by making the competition or assessment easier there was a regulation that laid down what lines could do this created legal certainty reduced risk reduced legal costs it was it's a straightforward a

In part 1 of the series, partner Philip Thomas and associate Voirrey Davies highlighted the importance of cybersecurity in shipping. In part 2, they share tips on how to handle a breach, and provide their thoughts on the future of autonomous shipping. ----more---- Transcript:  Intro: Trading Straits brings legal and business insights at the intersection of the shipping and energy sectors. This podcast series offers trends, developments, challenges and topics of interest from Reed Smith litigation, regulatory and finance lawyers across our network of global offices. If you have any questions about the topics discussed on this podcast, please do contact our speakers. Voirrey: Welcome back to Trading Straits. My name is Voirrey Davies and I am an associate in our transportation industry group based in our London office. I am joined once again today by Philip Thomas, partner in our emerging tech team, also based out of London. And this is our second podcast in our two-part series on shipping and cybersecurity. Just as a brief recap of our last podcast we thought it would be helpful just to go over again the definition of what cybersecurity actually is in the context of what we're talking about so cybersecurity is the steps taken by an organization both with regards to people and technology to prevent cyber attacks from occurring or to minimize their effect and as we talked about in our last podcast this differs from a data breach in various ways which we won't go into again but please feel free to listen to our podcast from last time if you want some more information on that. Our key takeaways from the last podcast were that it's just vital to be prepared ahead of time. You don't want to be dealing with a breach with nothing in place. People are often the weak link in any sector not just within transportation but any industry area and it's not because people seek to act maliciously it's just because hostile parties tend to target people so this is why training and robust policies for everybody in your team which includes people working as we would say at the pointy end so on the ships or driving the planes is of utmost importance and today what we're going to talk about is what happens when, despite all your best efforts, the most robust of policies, there has been a cyber attack and a corresponding cyber breach. I think really what the difficulty is, is trying to think about a cyber attack, because it can have just as big an impact as a physical casualty, like a fire or grounding, but it can be really difficult to envisage how it can actually affect a ship or a port infrastructure or shipping company. I mean, Philip, I don't know about you, but I personally think it's quite difficult to imagine something intangible like a cyber attack. Philip: Absolutely. So I think, I mean, cyber attacks can take very different shapes and forms. In a transportation context, they can have a significant disruptive effect. And as we mentioned on our last podcast, it can even, in some instances, be a matter of life or death, particularly where the attack involves challenges to the safety of personnel. I mean, in terms of real world consequences, there's a raft of things to take into account. First of all, there's the disruption that the incident occurs. There's a cost of remedying it. There's additional management time that could be taken up in trying to resolve it. You've got issues of reputational damage, potentially, because if you're seen to be an organization that suffers or at least is vulnerable to cyber attacks, that can impact your perception in the market. And it can also put you on the radar with regulators for all the wrong reasons. A recent example, although not a cyber attack specifically, was the CrowdStrike outage, which, as many of you will know, exposed the vulnerability of people's IT systems when you're reliant on a single service provider or a limited number of service providers. In that instance, the disruption came

Partner Philip Thomas and associate Voirrey Davies discuss the importance of cybersecurity in shipping. Some of the topics include the risks, examples of cyberattacks and tips on how to prevent them. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Trading Straits brings legal and business insights at the intersection of the shipping and energy sectors. This podcast series offers trends, developments, challenges and topics of interest from Reed Smith litigation, regulatory and finance lawyers across our network of global offices. If you have any questions about the topics discussed on this podcast, please do contact our speakers. Voirrey: Welcome back to Trading Straits. My name is Voirrey Davies and I'm an associate in the transportation group based in our London office. I'm joined today by Philip Thomas, who's a partner in our emerging technologies team, also based in London. And we're going to be talking to you today about shipping and cybersecurity, with the key question being, what do I need to know? So Philip, I think we should kick it off with the main part of the podcast, which is what is cybersecurity? Philip: So I think of cybersecurity as being how people, organizations, and even governments protect themselves against cyber attacks, and also how they mitigate the impact of those attacks occurring. To me, cybersecurity is distinct from cyber risk. When I think about cyber risk, I think about the risk of adverse consequences flowing from a cyber breach, so financial loss, business disruption, and so forth. And it's also distinct from data breach. We often find people using cyber breach and data breach interchangeably. A data breach typically has the theft or acquisition of data as its main focus, whereas a cyber breach is broader and may involve the data breach, but may not have data as the main focus. So you're aware of cyber incidents in the shipping sector, do you have any examples of what those cyber incidents look like and any recent examples to share Voirrey: Yeah absolutely. I mean as you said there's a quite big difference really between the data breach and then some sort of cyber attack that has happened. Back in 2017 there was a widely publicized cyber attack on Maersk, which essentially paralyzed their global network. And that was a ransomware attack. So these are things that are happening. And more recently, we've been seeing a lot of GPS spoofing. This is nothing new, but there's definitely been an uptick in those kind of matters, particularly from hostile states. It has a really big impact on the actual navigation system of the vessels that are out at sea. Not only are we seeing things to do with assets at sea, we're also seeing attacks on infrastructure in ports. The advent of kind of these really clever crane systems in container ports means that they are quite susceptible to any type of cyber attack that could render them unable to operate. And, you know, thinking of it on a kind of a wider basis. If you don't take your cyber security seriously in the shipping industry, then you can be very exposed. The impact of a cyber attack in shipping can be much more serious than in other sectors, because it can impact the safety and the seaworthiness of vessels, which essentially could mean life or death situations or significant damage to the asset, to the environment, to the cargo on board. Where we've seen with GPS spoofing, vessels can be led into hostile territory and potentially seized which is you know an absolute nightmare for everybody involved in that sort of situation. With this advent of real-time data to vessels directly into the navigation systems it's yet another access route for you know a hostile entity to try and kind of get into the cyber system of those vessels and as you know some of the examples I've just discussed there, organizations can be held to ransom. Ransomware is called that for that very reason. And unless you pay up, you can't get control of your systems or your vessels. And sometime

Alice Colarossi and Julia Norsetter discuss how the Jones Act poses challenges for the development of offshore wind projects in the U.S.  They explain the contents of the Jones Act, provide commentary on its implementation, and discuss solutions that have been used to overcome its restrictions. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Trading Straits brings legal and business insights at the intersection of the shipping and energy sectors. This podcast series offers trends, developments, challenges, and topics of interest from Reed Smith litigation, regulatory, and finance lawyers across our network of global offices. If you have any questions about the topics discussed on this podcast, please do contact our speakers. Julia: Good afternoon. Welcome back to Trading Straits. My name is Julia Norsetter, and I'm here with Reed Smith council, Alice Colarossi , and we're ready to talk about the Jones Act and offshore wind. Hi, Alice. How are you doing today? Alice: Hi, Julia. I'm doing very well. Thank you. How are you doing? Julia: Hey, I'm doing great. So I was thinking we could just jump right in here. So what's kind of the latest on the U.S. offshore wind market? Where do things currently stand? Alice: Yeah, well, it is a mixed bag. I think we see a lot of uncertainty, but also a lot of potential. So on the one hand, the U.S. offshore wind sector is still very far behind the European and the Asian offshore wind sectors. We're also far behind the goals that the Biden administration had set for the sector back in 2021. So the goal was to have 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity in the U.S. by 2030. People refer to it as the 30 by 30 goal. But according to the latest reports that I have seen, the U.S. Should only have about 16 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030. So that's just a bit more than half of the 30 by 30 goal. I would also mention that the two leading candidates for the U.S. Presidential election have quite opposite views on the significance and the future of the U.S. offshore wind sector. And therefore, there is a lot of uncertainty in the near future, how many federal leases will be available for offshore wind projects in the next few years, and so on. So it is really a challenging environment. But on the other hand, there's a real push among players in that field to try to catch up with the rest of the world and the Biden 30 by 30 goal. So according to recent reports, we could reach that 30 goal as early as 2033. So we may not be that far behind after all. And the Biden administration has approved several major offshore wind projects very recently, perhaps in an effort to achieve as much as possible before the end of the current term. And another significant development that I think we should talk about today is the construction of the very first U.S.-flagged, Jones Act-compliant wind turbine installation vessel by Dominion Energy in Texas. That's a unique, first-of-its-kind vessel. The sea trial just took place in May. That was a major milestone in the construction project. And that Dominion vessel is expected to start installing offshore wind turbines, in Virginia just next year in 2025. Julia: Terrific. Well, thanks for setting the stage there, Alice. I really appreciate it. You mentioned the recent sea trial of the first Jones Act-compliant wind turbine installation vessel. For those of our listeners who may not be familiar with the Jones Act, could you kind of explain what it means for a vessel to be Jones Act-compliant, and in particular, what this means in the U.S. offshore wind sector? Alice: Yes, of course. So the Jones Act is what we call the Merchant Marine Act. It's a U.S. law that dates back to 1920. So the Jones Act requires that all vessels, all ships that carry any type of cargo between points in the United States must be U.S. flagged, so U.S. Registered, as well as U.S. built, U.S. owned, U.S. controlled, and mostly U.S. crewed, subject to some limited exceptions. So when I just say

Admiralty & casualty lawyers Richard Gunn (partner) and James Scott (counsel) discuss developments in relation to the 1976 Convention on limitation of liability for maritime claims. Richard provides analysis on the application of Articles 12 and 13 of the Convention and James talks on limitation of liability for indemnity claims for wreck removal costs.    ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Trading Straights brings legal and business insights at the intersection of the shipping and energy sectors. This podcast series offers trends, developments, challenges and topics of interest from Reed Smith, litigation, regulatory and finance lawyers across our network of global offices. If you have any questions about the topics discussed on this podcast, please do contact our speakers.  James: Welcome to the Trading Straights podcast on Global Limitation Developments with your host, Reed Smith Casualty lawyers, Richard Gunn and James Scott. This podcast is a continuation of the presentations given recently by Richard and James in Japan Tokyo at the shipping seminar to the local market. I'm James Scott and my section of the podcast is on the Hong Kong final court of appeal judgment number 20 of 2003 on limitation of liability for indemnity claims for wreck removal. Richard will give a talk on his views on other matters in relation to article 12 of the Limitation Convention, but I'll get started on my bit now. So in January 2019, Antea collided with another vessel called the Star Centurion whilst the latter was anchored in Indonesian waters, Star Centurion became a total loss. The Indonesian Ministry of Transportation issued a wreck removal order to the owners of Star Centurion requiring them to raise and remove the vessel and render her harmless. It was not disputed in this action that the collision was entirely the fault of the Antea. The owners of the Star Centurion commenced proceedings in Hong Kong seeking an indemnity for the costs of complying with the Indonesian order. The owners of Antea commenced their own action in Hong Kong seeking to establish a limitation fund under the 1976 convention. Contrary to their presumptive position in England, the Hong Kong CFA concluded that the owners of Antea could not limit their liability. And before we turn to the reasons for that decision, let's cap the relevant articles of the convention and there's four of them as follows. Article 2.1.A provides for limitation for losses consequential to the direct operation of the ship. Article 2.1.D provides expressly that wreck removal expenses are limitable. Article 2.2 provides that indemnity claims for wreck removal expenses are limitable except for expenses arising from contracts. And fourthly article 18.1 provides that contracting states may reserve the right to exclude article 2.1.D. The effect of exercising that right is that wreck removal expenses cannot be limited under article 2.1.D. So with these articles in mind, let's talk now on how the courts in England and Hong Kong are likely to apply them. The first thing to say is that article 2.1.D does not apply in either England or in Hong Kong. This suggests that the courts in these two countries apply the 1976 convention differently in relation to indemnity claims for wreck removal. Indeed, following the Hong Kong CFA judgment in the Star Centurion, this appears to be the case. So let's take a look at the position in England first. There is yet to be a directly applicable precedent in England. But many believe that the English courts would find that interparty wreck removal claims fall within article 2.1.A that is that they are consequential on the operation of a ship and therefore limitable. It's clear as a matter of English law that consistent construction must be given to international conventions. In the Aegean Sea, Thomas J referred to precedent whereby the limitation convention is to apply to all cases which can reasonably be bought within its language. And it's been suggested t

Partners Nick Austin, Thor Maalouf and Alex Brandt bring us up to date with the latest shipping and trade issues; including sanctions, the geopolitical landscape's influence on the supply chain, and the shifting dynamics of decarbonization regulations. Following the industry panel discussion at the London International Shipping Week event hosted by Reed Smith in September, the three speakers offer insights into the evolving challenges and opportunities shaping the future of the shipping and trade sector.

The demand for large-scale offshore energy – including oil, wind and solar – is presenting opportunities for companies that supply vessels. Transportation lawyers Susan Riitala and Catriona Henderson discuss the unique dynamics of financing vessels for offshore energy operations, the special risks it presents, the importance of having trusted partners, and other solutions to major problems. Tune in for a concise, insightful look at the booming world of offshore energy.

Partners Nick Austin and Brett Hillis and counsel Julie Vaughan explain key features of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) and how it is now to be applied to ships entering and leaving EU ports – and those sailing between them. In this podcast, they discuss the implications for charterers, possibilities for trading emissions allowances and the relevance of financial regulation.

Customs has taken on heightened significance with respect to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) compliance and risk management for many global businesses. We are tapping the knowledge of two former federal prosecutors from the U.S. Justice Department to help provide useful insights. Regulatory enforcement lawyers Daniel Ahn and Mark Bini discuss their experience in matters involving allegations of bribery and corruption brought by federal and state governments and explain the key issues that companies should look out for at the border. They analyze the FCPA, discuss customs issues, and show how attention to compliance and due diligence help prevent allegations of corruption.

Transportation lawyers Philip Rymer, Thor Maalouf and Romain Farnoux discuss issues arising from the incorporation of new technologies – specifically, ones designed to reduce carbon emissions – in superyachts, including the risks of new designs and their potential impact on construction terms and financing arrangements.

A new EU regulation will come into force on June 29, 2023, imposing onerous due diligence requirements for businesses buying and selling products made from seven common commodities: cocoa, coffee, cattle, soy, rubber, palm oil, and timber, or the raw commodities themselves. For timber, the regulation replaces an earlier law, but for the remaining commodities, it is cutting new ground. In this podcast, Julie Vaughan and Nicolas Walker from our environmental team lead you through how it all works.

Transportation lawyers Mike Adamson and Laura Hyne discuss the use of alternative fuels in the maritime industry, including the potential challenges and benefits of using greener fuels, as well as new regulatory and legislative developments.

Partners Alex Brandt (London) and James Willn (Dubai) discuss how international sanctions against Russia are impacting the shipping and energy sectors. They cover the sanctions’ effects on industry, the situation’s impact on the Middle East, and the challenges of dealing with inconsistencies in the EU, UK, and U.S. approaches.  This episode was recorded on February 14 and does not take into consideration any guidance/updates published after that date.

Partners Kevin Keenan and Antonia Panayides discuss the market for bunkering facilities and vessels. LNG is poised to expand – thanks to technological advances and market demand for cleaner fuel. But that expansion must take into account international commitments to reduce CO2 emissions. Kevin and Antonia explain the latest developments in the space and the key points that shipowners, charterers, and their counsel should consider in order to avoid pitfalls.

The legal and regulatory bars are getting higher around green finance and carbon finance. When seeking funding, industry participants must do more to prove their environmental achievements.  Susan Riitala and Rob Lustrin from our Transportation Industry Group, and Brett Hillis, from our Energy and Natural Resources Group, discuss green finance structures and substantiating environmental claims in the shipping, transportation and ENR industries.