Conditions of Commencement of Laytime from the Perspective of Common Law Judicial Case Law and Arbitral Awards

Abstract

Laytime is the obligation of the ship's charterer to carry out loading / unloading operations within the stipulated time. Determining the exact point when laytime commences is determined by various factors and is important because exceeding laytime would result in the liability of charterer against shipowner and many cases has been formed on this issue in the Common law system. However, under Iranian law, the subject is not addressed and the lack of rules, reveals the need to study the matter. The present article seeks to extract the criteria of commencement of laytime by adopting an analytical and interpretive method and examining the existing judicial case law and arbitral awards under common law system, which is the main origin of shipping law and to study the most important issues around each criterion. The findings of the article, indicate that in general, under the common law legal system, three cumilitive conditions exist, which lead to commencement of laytime when all of the mentioned conditions are met. These three conditions are the presence of the ship at the intended contractual destination, readiness of the ship, and finally the issuance of Notice of Readiness (NOR).

Keywords

• carriage of goods
• shipping
• laytime
• charterparty
• judicial precedence and arbitral case law