Reading

Merchant Shipping (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act 2019

Singapore President, Madam Halimah Yaacob assented the Act on 11 Feb 2019. The Act amends three major Singapore shipping legislations:

1. Merchant Shipping (Maritime Labour Convention) Act 2014 (Act 6 of 2014);

2. Merchant Shipping Act (Chapter 179 of the 1996 Revised Edition); and

3. Maritime Conventions Act, 1911 (2004 Revised Edition).

The most significant amendment is to implement the approximately three-decade old International Convention on Salvage 1989. The Salvage Convention is thus scheduled within the Merchant Shipping Act under a new schedule: Second Schedule; consecutive to the existing one and only Schedule, and consequently re-titled First Schedule therein. Also worthwhile to note that the First Schedule brings into force the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims, 1976, as amended by the Protocol of 1996 to Amend the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims ("LLMC 1996"). During its second reading of the then Merchant Shipping (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill, Non-Constituency Member of Parliament, Dennis Tan mentioned: "The original 1996 Protocol limits were in force since May 2004 until 8 June 2015 when the new limits came into force under the tacit acceptance procedure set out in the Protocol. The 2012 amendment to the 1996 Protocol increased its limits further as a result of IMO member states' concern over the insufficient seat of the 1996 Protocol limits arising from cases like the "Pacific Adventurer" case in Queensland, Australia in 2009." He continued to query on the non adoption of the 2012 amendment. (See the second reading here.)

The Act is gazetted here.

Further reading:

IMO on LLMC 1996 here.

Maritime Legislative Changes in Singapore by Prof Stephen Girvin in Lloyd's Maritime Law Commercial Quarterly (2019, Part 4).