CHARTERING BUSINESS
01) Ship owner
02) Charterer
03) Brokers
01) Ship owner: The person
entering into the charter party with the charterer is known as the ship owner
or owner who owns or operate ships. Some owners are of a single ship, others of
large fleets. Some concentrate on ships of a particular type or size. Many
ships are owned, in the legal sense, by financial institutions. This is usually
because the ships are being purchased under a hire purchase arrangement. Some ship
owners are state-controlled or run their ships under the flag of the country in
which they reside, while others operate ships under a ‘convenient’ flag.
Operators who
employ a ship and then re-employ that vessel for further business chartering
her out in a new role are described as disponent owners or time charter owners.
A disponent owner is a party deemed to
be the ship owner having control of the vessel by time charter.
02) Charterer: The person entering into the
charter party with the ship owner is known as the charterer who in search of
vacant cargo space for transporting his commodity.
Kinds of charterers
Ø
Individuals operating small corporations
Ø
Major international trading-houses
Ø
The owner of the goods to be carried.
Ø
The seller or the buyer of a commodity.
Ø
Intermediary between buyer and seller(third
party)
Ø
Ship owners/NVOCC/MTO
Ø
Forwarders
03) Brokers: The
individuals or corporations who identify supply and demand for ships and
cargoes and thereby help the main-players to secure cargoes for their ships and
ships for their cargoes are called shipbrokers or chartering brokers.
The chartering broker should keep
both the ship owner and the charterer continuously informed about the market
situation and the market development, about available cargo proposals and
shipment possibilities.A typical deep-sea dry cargo
fixture will involve at least two chartering brokers - one representing the ship
owner, the other representing the charterer. Sometimes there will be more
brokers in the chain.
BROKERAGE
The chartering broker’s income is
in the form of the reward of commission or brokerage paid for a successful
introduction and negotiation between ship owner and charterer leading to a
fixture. Even after hard work and expense, a negotiation that does not lead to
a fixture will normally result in no payment of any kind to the broker in the
middle. Unless otherwise expressly agreed, commission is payable only on
freight or hire earned and paid; it is customary in a voyage charter for this
to be extended by agreement to allow commission to be payable on dead freight
and/or demurrage, if any.
On time charter similarly it can be extended
to a ballast bonus. In chartering it is the usual practice for a commission
clause to appear in the contract and the commission is customarily payable by
the ship owner to the charterer's broker as well as to the owner's broker.
