Shipping & Aviation

Overview

The country's shipping industry appears set for a period of unparalleled expansion following the recent prohibition on cabotage (i.e., carriage of passengers and goods by foreign registered vessels between Indonesian ports). To accommodate the needs of ship owners, charterers, and marine insurers, we provide advice on all aspects of shipping law, including ship finance & security, sale and purchase, disputes arising out of charter parties, bills of lading, insurance, and collisions, and all other admiralty matters.

Our shipping expertise is widely recognised, as shown by the recent invitation to our partner Bono Daru Adji to testify as an expert witness before the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) in a multi million dollar charter-party dispute involving an oilfield services vessel.

Important recent mandates in this practice area include advising an international shipping firm on the obscure rules governing the arrest of a vessel in Indonesian waters for breach of a security covenant, and the International Finance Corporation on its USD 35 million loan facility to PT Trada Maritime Tbk, the largest floating oil storage operator in Indonesia. This instruction involved complex questions of maritime law during the due diligence process in connection with the status of the borrower’s fleet.

In the aviation sector, we provide advice on aircraft financing, sale and purchase, and statutory obligations related to aviation. As in the case of shipping, the aviation industry is of the utmost importance in an archipelagic nation such as Indonesia, and has expanded exponentially in recent years with the advent of the budget-airline sector. We believe that our strength and expertise in this area is amply demonstrated by the fact that we count a number of high-profile aviation-related companies among our general advisory clients.