Geoffrey Conlin

Geoffrey Conlin is a partner with Holman Fenwick Willan based in the Sao Paulo office. He acts mainly for international insurers, reinsurers and brokers based in London and overseas. Geoffrey specializes in resolving complex, cross border claims arising from energy (onshore and offshore), property, casualty and marine risks. He has extensive experience in Ports & Terminals insurance and reinsurance. Geoffrey has acted on cases in most jurisdictions in Latin America. He also has experience advising on policy wordings and coordinating the licensing of reinsurance companies in the Latin American region. Geoffrey is a member of the British Insurance Law Association and is recommended in the Chambers Latin America 2014 and 2015 directories, with clients highlighting his "very direct knowledge and understanding of the local markets besides all the insurance coverage issues" and "his good feel for what clients need during insurance and reinsurance disputes". He is also recommended in Who's Who Legal: Brazil 2014. Geoffrey is a regular contributor to market publications and has delivered presentations on insurance and reinsurance in Latin America and in the UK. Geoffrey is qualified in England and Wales. 

Jessica Maitra

Jessica is a Partner in Clyde & Co’s Marine and International Trade department. She has an international practice with an emphasis on shipping, trade and insurance work. Jessica is an experienced BIMCO trianer. At the BIMCO courses, she is drawing on her significant experiences advising clients on both commercial and contentious matters. From a disputes perspective she works on cases in the English Courts and in LMAA and other arbitrations. She also advises on contracts and transactions in the marine and insurance sectors. Jessica regularly advises on disputes and commercial aspects of shipping contracts, including charterparties, bills of lading, shipbuilding contracts and ship management agreements. Jessica has a wealth of experience in cases concerning liquid, gas and dry cargoes, but has particular experience of energy shipping and tanker contracts and claims. Her clients include shipowners, charterers, ship managers, oil majors and other energy companies, traders and their insurers/reinsurers. Jessica is listed by Legal 500 for shipping.

Baris Soyer

Professor Soyer is the Director of the Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law at Swansea University (www.swansea.ac.uk/law/istl). He is a member of the British Maritime Law Association and British Insurance Law Association. He is the author of Warranties in Marine Insurance published by Cavendish Publishing (2001), Marine Insurance Fraud published by Informa Publishing and of an extensive list of journal articles published in elite journals such as Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly, Journal of Business Law, Cambridge Law Journal, Edinburgh Law Review, Law Quarterly Review, Torts Law Journal and Journal of Contract Law. He sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of International Maritime Law, Shipping and Trade Law and editorial committee of the Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly (International Maritime and Commercial Law Yearbook). He currently teaches Admiralty Law, Charterparties: Law and Practice and Marine Insurance on the LLM Programme, and is the Director of Shipping and Trade LLM programmes at Swansea. 

Nicholas Kazaz

Nicholas Kazaz is an Associate at HFW, where he focuses on international commercial dispute resolution, specialising in offshore oil & gas, energy, and marine. Nicholas handles disputes arising from installation contracts, charter parties, bills of lading, shipbuilding, rig disputes, towage, collisions, salvage, general average, groundings, total loss, and limitation. Among others, he acts for and advises shipowners, charterers, energy companies, contractors, shipyards, ship managers, and P&I Clubs. Nicholas has particular experience of drafting and negotiating a range of contracts in the shipping and offshore sectors, including BIMCO SUPPLYTIME, TOWCON and BARGEHIRE and other standard contracts, as well as bespoke OSV vessel charter parties. Since joining HFW, Nicholas has undertaken secondments in Australia (to HFW's Perth Office with a focus on the Offshore / Oil & Gas / Commodities sectors), to the in-house legal team of a major international tanker owner, to two International Group P&I Clubs / Insurers, and a leading insurance broker. Nicholas is qualified in England and Wales.

Toby Stephens

Toby is HFW’s Singapore Head of Shipping and APAC Head of our global Crisis Management team. Toby’s work involves managing major marine and energy disasters, which are often complex, involving a number of interrelated actions in a number of jurisdictions. He is also recognised for insurance coverage and other marine and energy related commercial and contractual disputes.  Toby has practical experience of working as a marine surveyor in Houston. He has also acted as head of the legal team at a leading Lloyd’s syndicate dealing with marine, energy and war risks.  Toby is qualified in England and Wales and joined HFW as a solicitor in 2001. He became a Partner in 2007 and relocated from our London office to Singapore in 2017.

Mads Wacher Kjærgaard

Mads Wacher Kjærgaard is Assistant Manager in BIMCO’s Contracts & Clauses Department. He is involved in the development of BIMCO’s wide range of standard contracts and clauses. Mads is a lawyer and graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 2017. Prior to joining BIMCO in 2018 he was employed with a worldwide credit insurance company. Throughout his studies he was employed by a Danish shipowner in their in-house legal department dealing with a various shipping related and corporate tasks.

Elinor Dautlich

Elinor is Partner at HFW and heads the global finance team.  She represents shipowners, operators, shipyards, designers and banks across the cruise, commercial shipping, yachts and business jets, LNG and offshore sectors. Elinor advises on all types of commercial shipping contracts including second-hand sale and purchase, shipbuilding contracts, EPC and EPCI contracts, ship recycling, ship registration, charterparties, pooling agreements, management agreements, seismic-related contracts, shares sale and purchase and joint venture agreements as well as on ship and aviation finance, leasing, seller's credits and other forms of capital raising. She also advises on contracts for the design, construction, purchase and operation of yachts and business jets. Elinor is part of the firm's LNG group, which has been responsible for drafting some of the first long-term LNG vessel charters and has, over the years, built up extensive experience of LNG time charters and related agreements, including joint venture arrangements, for some of the major LNG projects around the world. The group deals with all modern LNG time voyage and other specific charters, gas supply / offtake and LNG sale and purchase agreements, financing agreements, insurance issues, FLNG, FSRU projects and the construction and operation of LNG ports and terminals. Elinor has particular experience in the drafting of LNG charters and the ShellLNGTime form. Elinor has been advising on piracy related contracts since 2009, including contracts for the provision of private security services and, more recently, cyber security services and insurance. She sits on BIMCO's drafting sub-committees for GUARDCON and the new cyber security clauses.  Elinor lectures on commercial shipping matters, and in particular on shipbuilding and offshore construction topics, security in shipping and yachting, FPSO charters, LNG charters and FSRU contracts and related insurance issues. Elinor is recommended by the Legal 500 UK and Chambers directories. She co-leads the firm's travel and leisure group. Elinor is a former chair of the International Bar Association's Maritime and Land Transport Law Committee, sits on the UK Chamber of Shipping's Taxation Committee and is a member of WISTA. She has been with HFW since 1994. Elinor is qualified in England and Wales.

George Leloudas

Dr George Leloudas is an Associate Professor at the Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law (IISTL) of Swansea University that he joined in 2011. He is a graduate of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He holds LLM degrees from the University of Bristol (England, 2002) and McGill University (Montreal, Canada, 2003). He also completed his PhD degree at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University in 2009 and worked in practice as a solicitor in London prior to joining to the IISTL.   George has most recently published his second monograph together with Professor Malcolm Clarke of Cambridge University on cargo Insurance. Also, in 2018 he published (with Prof Baris Soyer) an article on the carriage of passengers by sea in Michigan State University International Law Review and an article on IUU fishing (with Prof. Baris Soyer and Dr Dana Miller) in Transnational Environmental Law. He teaches marine insurance law, carriage of goods by sea, land and air and arbitration law and he is also one of the editors of the preeminent transport law publication, Shawcross and Beaumont, being responsible for the (passenger and cargo) liability chapters of the publication

Christopher Chan

Christopher specialises in all aspects of marine litigation and arbitration, commercial litigation and international trade disputes. He is renowned throughout South East Asia for his admiralty capability and his practice covers all aspects of shipping disputes to include collisions, salvage, charterparty disputes, bills of lading, cargo claims, tug and tow disputes, stevedore damage claims, personal injuries/fatal accident claims, insurance coverage issues and P&I insurance matters generally. Christopher is recommended as a key member of the Shipping team in the Asia-Pacific 2019 editions of Chambers and Legal 500. In particular, Chambers 2018 mentioned that clients appreciate his "prompt attendance to matters and situations," noting that "his efficiency in providing advice or strategies is effective in shedding light on the next step."  Christopher is qualified in England and Wales and Hong Kong.

General Average Absorption Clause 2018

The BIMCO Standard General Average Absorption Clause, for use in marine insurance policies, was updated in 2017 to give effect to the revised York-Antwerp Rules 2016. Further modifications have now been made to streamline the basis for determining insurers’ payments.  Details are set out below together with advice on adapting the clause where the underlying marine insurance policy covers more than one vessel. The 2018 clause should be used in place of the 2017 provision. The original 2002 version of the Clause, based on the York-Antwerp Rules 1994, should no longer be used.

• Clause
• General average