On 14 June, London
BIMCO has recently published the much anticipated GUARDCON standard contract for the employment of security guards on vessels. This brand new contract has been developed to provide ship owners and private maritime security companies (PMSC) with a clearly worded and comprehensive standard contract to govern the employment and use of security guards, with or without firearms, on board merchant vessels. BIMCO has also published Guidance on the Rules for the Use of Force (RUF) to accompany GUARDCON which will undoubtedly be of great assistance to owners and private maritime security companies when drawing up and agreeing RUF for their own purposes.
According to BIMCO Deputy Secretary General, Søren Larsen, “GUARDCON has been drafted in just a little over three months by a small group of experts drawn from ship owners, underwriters, P&I Clubs and lawyers with first-hand experience of working with contracts for security services. The speed at which GUARDCON has been drafted is a considerable credit to the drafting group whose members devoted many long hours free of charge to the project.”
BIMCO’s Chief Officer Legal and Contractual Affairs, Grant Hunter said “In response to ship owners’ increasing demand for security services, an ever growing number of private maritime security companies have entered the market to meet that demand. In the absence of a standard contract for these services, ship owners and their P&I Clubs are currently faced with the difficult and time consuming task of assessing large numbers of contracts from these security companies, all with varying terms and conditions. GUARDCON’s objective is to create a contractual benchmark for the employment of security services so that minimum levels of insurance cover for PMSCs are established and that adequate safeguards are put in place to ensure that liabilities and responsibilities are properly addressed and that all necessary permits and licenses are obtained.”
Source: BIMCO
