The long-standing concept of General Average, which seeks to share equitably costs arising from maritime casualties, has never been more relevant, it was stressed at the 2024 annual dinner of the Association of Average Adjusters in London.
Nick Austin, a shipping partner at Reed Smith LLP, responding at the annual dinner to a toast to the Bench and legal profession, insisted that General Average remained essential to the efficient handling of marine accidents. He said that key principles of English contract law went back to a least the 15th century, while General Average as a concept could be traced back to Roman law. “It seems to me that General Average has never been more relevant,” he declared.
The constantly shifting sands of geopolitics means that shipping is once again in the crosshairs, not just in the Red Sea but in a variety of places where piracy (after some years of reduced activity) and other risks to shipping have proliferated … and accidents will happen,
…he said, a reference to the March 2024 collision of a containership with a bridge at the US port of Baltimore, where an act of General Average is set to follow.
“While the shipping industry has arguably never been safer, and more technologically advanced and effectively regulated, than it is today, seaworthiness and the condition of vessels, their hulls and equipment remain of paramount importance,” Mr Austin continued.
The continuing relevance of General Average in a world of dramatic and rapid change “is nothing short of miraculous.
He added: “Our established and reliable systems of maritime law and international liability regimes support and enforce these basic requirements of the maritime industry, applied and upheld, as I know it is, by the best lawyers and the best judges the world has to offer. And all of this is inextricably linked with General Average – long may that remain the case.”
Mr Austin, who is an executive committee member of the British Maritime Law Association said the BMLA had strong connections with the Association of Average Adjusters in the advancement of law. Members of both associations worked tirelessly on legal matters on behalf of solicitors, judges, barristers, legal executives, paralegals and other legal practitioners.
The toast to the Bench and the legal profession had been proposed by Stelios Magkanaris, a Fellow of the Association of Average Adjusters. Mr Magkanaris, who is a director at Marine Adjusters & Consultants Inc, based in Piraeus, spoke of “this unique annual dinner of the Association of Average Adjusters which has been a landmark for so many decades.” He said that among those present were “a strong basis of the legal profession.”
He admitted that it was hard to define the profession of average adjuster. “We put numbers in columns, but we are no accountants. We use, talk about and debate with marine insurance legal issues but we are not lawyers. We allow, disallow, limit, exclude or include costs related to pistons, crankshafts, motors, boilers, shafts, frames and longitudinals but we may never have set foot onboard a real commercial ship.”
“Adjusters are the humble workers of marine casualties, they are the first line of defence in marine insurance claims, but this is only feasible due to the strong skeleton of marine insurance law, constructed and maintained by the Law Lords of the Bench…. and the strong muscles of the legal professionals.
…Stelios Magkanaris added.
