Management Responsibility in Marine Casualties Seminar, Tokyo, 24th March 2023

On 24 March, the UK P&I Club Japan Branch hosted a hybrid loss prevention seminar on the theme of 'Management Responsibility in Marine Casualties' at Tokyo Port City Takeshiba to approximately 200 attendees both online and in person.

The speakers were Capt. Hiroshi Sekine, Senior Loss Prevention Director for the UK P&I Club; Mr. Shinichiro Nanjo, Executive Officer, Head of Marine Sales, Corporate Sales Division at Kyoritsu Insurance Brokers; and Mr. Yosuke Tanaka, the principal partner at Tanaka & Partners, LPC. Each speaker looked at the main theme from their own perspective with attendees finding their lectures useful to their business practice. 

Capt. Sekine highlighted the importance of Bridge Resource Management (BRM) and Safety Management Systems (SMS) and explained the measures that shipowners and ship managers should take, whilst referring to past casualty cases where the management side were held responsible. 

In Mr. Nanjo's presentation entitled 'A Study on Marine Casualties and Management', he discussed on the different meanings of management and the requirements for insurance cover to be made available under the Marine Insurance Act, and for the liabilities of shipowners as carriers and the Insurers' management risk assessment. 

Lastly, Mr Tanaka presented on the 'Legal Considerations on the SHIPMAN Form' using the SHIPMAN Standard Ship Management Agreement Form and Oceangoing Vessel Management Agreement form as reference materials. He discussed recent trends in environmental laws and regulations and the management responsibility, referring to past oil pollution cases caused by grounding incidents. 

After the seminar, Members, brokers, shipping academics and more reconvened at the reception with each other for the first time in four years due to the COVID-19 restrictions. 

You can watch the video on this seminar here.