Canada’s Ship Source Pollution Regime

ICS Speakers Luncheon – Canada’s Ship Source Pollution Regime, May 14th, 2019

A drizzly Tuesday lunch hour didn’t prevent over 30 interested individuals from making an appearance at the Price Waterhouse ‘Meeting Room’ to hear a wonderful presentation on Ship Source Pollution.  Mr. David S. Jarrett, Partner at the well known firm of BERNARD LLP, presented a 45 minute overview of Canada’s Ship Source Pollution Regime (SOPF) along with some recent noteworthy decisions and introduction of new terms.

Starting with the International Regime, Mr. Jarrett went on to compare aspects to the Canadian Regime and how it works in practice. While the audience munched their sandwiches and sipped coffee and juice, David touched on recent regulatory prosecutions and then balanced it off with more recent SOPF decisions. He used case examples of the Torrey Canyon and the mv Marathassa, both of which raised much controversy related to claims, payouts and possible consequences to the actions. As the presentation unfolded, Mr. Jarrett, explained the aspect of ‘inspection’ of ships versus ‘investigation’ for ship pollution and what rights a Master/Owner would have in allowing persons aboard their vessel for viewing. Summing up, our guest speaker highlighted aspects of Regulatory prosecutions and Civil Liability decisions, with examples of the twice sunk tug “ELF” along with the case of the barge, jokingly named the “TILTIN HILTON”.

Full presentation can be viewed is our library.

Rounding things out with some pointed questions, the satiated crowd filed back to work about 1:30, fortunately to a much drier, friendlier weather outlook. A resounding ‘Thank You’ to Mr. Dave Jarrett for his contribution to the INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED SHIPBROKERS luncheon series. Well done !