ARREST OF ASSOCIATED SHIP: THE POSSIBILITY TO APPLY SOUTH AFRICAN APPROACH TO THAI LAW
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Abstract
The character of maritime business concerns the movement of ships which are the main asset of the debtor, the recoverability of maritime debt becomes a major problem for people engaged in maritime trade. In addition, over half of shipowning companies around the world are incorporated as “one ship company” (or “single-ship company”) by the way of spitting up the ships in fleet into each different company; this allows the shipowner to limit the liability to the value of each ship. Thai law and International Conventions regarding the arrest of ships only permit the ships under common ownership to be susceptible to arrest, thus, fail to provide insufficient measure to cope with the problem of single-ship companies.
South Africa introduced a new approach vesting the maritime creditor to apply for the arrest of the ship under the common control of the debtor notwithstanding she is registered in the name of different legal owners. This thesis, therefore, aims to study the approach of South Africa to the arrest of ship so-called associated ship as provided in the Admiralty Jurisdiction Regulation Act 105 of 1983.
This thesis will study how the associated ship arrest approach operates in order to find out the proper solutions to solve the problems of recoverability of maritime debt from the single-ship companies in Thailand.
From the study, it is found that the approach of South African successfully strikes on the said problem arising from operation of single ship companies. By allowing arrest of the ships under control of the debtor, the creditors are granted an opportunity to obtain alternative security for future litigation which is an effective tool to enforce the judgment. It also helps reducing the proliferation of single ship companies. Thus, the writer suggests that the provision of the Arrest of Ship Act B.E. 2534 be amended by adopting this associated ship approach of South African law to enable the maritime creditor in Thailand to obtain security that serve the maritime business nowadays
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References
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