Infectious or Contagious Diseases Clause for Time Charter Parties 2015
31 March 2023The outbreak from time to time of virulent diseases can have significant implications for ship owners and operators. This might include quarantine of a vessel and crew in an area where the disease is prevalent as well as the imposition of restrictions, possibly weeks or months later, in ports remote from the infected region as a precaution against the disease spreading further. The Novel Corona virus is the latest outbreak of a series of contagious disease that may impact shipping operations. In 2015 it was the Ebola virus and 10 years before that the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that caused similar concern. It is likely that equally serious strains of existing, or newly identified, diseases will occur from time to time. For this reason BIMCO has chosen to develop a set of comprehensive and clearly worded generic clauses for voyage and time charter parties that can be applied not only to the Novel Corona virus outbreak but to other similar virulent diseases that may occur in the future.
