01 March 2019
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.
03 June 2019
Mike is a partner and head of Stephenson Harwood’s marine and international trade practice. He specialises in shipping, carriage of goods, contentious ship finance disputes and ship and offshore vessel construction. Mike’s clients include banks, shipowners, traders and P&I clubs/insurers. Acting for some of the world’s largest and most well-known shipowners, he has experience of dealing with a wide range of matters from cargo claims and off-hire disputes to groundings and vessel fires. On the contentious ship finance side, Mike represents leading ship finance banks in a wide array of disputes arising from both pre and post-delivery finance.
19 August 2019
Christian Bækmark Schiolborg is Manager, Maritime Technology and Regulation at BIMCO. He is responsible for analysing regulatory developments, mainly on the issues of IMO 2020 sulphur cap, fuel safety and reduction of greenhouse gases from ships. Furthermore, he represents BIMCO at international organisations such as the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) on aforementioned matters.
Christian is educated as dual officer (deck officer and marine engineer) and has sailed on container ships and offshore vessels.
Before joining BIMCO, he worked 6 years with the Danish Maritime Authority. Here he began as ship surveyor, became port state control officer and ended as special adviser in technical regulation in the department for maritime regulations and legal affairs, where he represented Denmark in IMO on different technical issues and was Head of the Danish delegation in the Sub-committee on Ship Systems and Equipment.
17 September 2019
Chris is Of Counsel at the Houston office of international law firm HFW. His practice focuses on shipping, marine, and energy companies, including litigation and commercial transactions. He is an experienced trial lawyer, resolving disputes in federal and state courts and in arbitration. He advises clients in transactions involving charter parties, maritime contracts, offshore energy and master service agreements, and infrastructure projects with maritime law concerns. Chris also advises on regulatory compliance, including Jones Act coastwise trade and shipping regulations.
Chris has over 25 years of experience with charter parties, sale of goods and transport contracts, maritime liens, ship arrests and maritime attachment remedies, shipping casualties, bunker and cargo disputes, marine pollution, and many issues in the shipping industry. In the energy sector, Chris has experience in upstream and midstream commercial disputes and casualties, onshore and offshore. He has been a speaker and author on topics including bunker contracts, OSV charter parties, coastwise trade laws, offshore drilling, and many maritime law issues.
Before practicing law, Chris sailed as a professional mariner on chemical tanker, crude oil tanker, and general cargo ships.
10 April 2019
Ashok is Manager, Maritime Technology and Regulation at BIMCO and is responsible for coordinating BIMCO’s initiatives on a variety of technical, operational and regulation related matters. He represents BIMCO at international organisations such as International Maritime Organization(IMO), International Association of Classification Societies(IACS) on aforementioned matters.
He is educated as a master mariner, dynamic positioning officer, and marine lead auditor. He also holds an MBA (Master of Business Administration) from Copenhagen Business School. He is an experienced seafarer with 18 years of experience in the maritime sector. He started his career with A.P.Moller Maersk and has sailed on a variety of ships including containers, car carriers, oil tankers (crude and product), gas tankers (LPG and LNG) in the maritime shipping (13 years) and platform supply vessels & cable layers in the offshore sector (3years). Ashok has also been a visiting faculty at the marine colleges in India, where he taught navigation, safety and cargo related courses to budding seafarers.
He is certified as a lead auditor and integrated marine auditor by LRQA (Lloyds register quality assurance). He has conducted quality, safety and security audits on several ship types and helped prepare ships for external class audits (ISM, ISPS and MLC audits), and industry vetting inspections such as OCIMF-SIRE, CDI inspections.
15 November 2019
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.
12 September 2016
The shipyards become the next victim of the deteriorating conditions in the dry bulk, container and offshore markets
12 September 2016
07 November 2016
A selected consultation group from the offshore industry including owners, charterers, brokers, insurers, P&I clubs and legal experts, have recently contributed with feedback on the revised SUPPLYTIME form. This process has helped the drafting team in reviewing and “polishing” the current draft during a two day meeting at BIMCO House in November.
02 January 2018
Ship recycling pays! 2018 is expected to continue in a similar vein, with a major focus falling on the wet and offshore sectors
The weekly demolition report by GMS, provides an overview of the demolition market, price by scrap yard location and ship type.
