The Wire: Time-barred claims

Welcome to this edition of The Wire on the topic of time-barred claims.

ITIC is regularly notified of claims from shipbrokers for failing to pass on demurrage claims (or similar, such as claims for war risk premium invoices) on time or to the correct email address. It appears that charterers are increasingly including more onerous demurrage time bar clauses in the charterparties, which owners agree to. These clauses not only stipulate very short time limits for the demurrage claim to be notified (e.g. 30 days) and for the demurrage claim to be fully documented (e.g. 75 days), they also often stipulate that the email address used to send such notifications and/or claims is one that is set out subsequently in the voyage instructions/orders. Such email addresses can vary from voyage to voyage.

ITIC therefore strongly reminds members to carefully read the charterparty demurrage clauses to check the deadline carefully before receiving a demurrage claim and before sending the claim on to charterers. Shipbrokers, if expecting any demurrage claim, should also check their spam inbox and email server before the deadline in case the email sent by owners has been caught in the spam filter or in the server/security system.

We hope you find the following claims scenarios, which have all been handled by ITIC, interesting and informative.

Find the full publication here.