Letter to the Editor

I WRITE further to your Lost Cause article in Issue 5 of the Maritime Advocate, to set the record straight.

The article entitled Warning on New York Arbitration, published in the April 1998 edition of the North of England P&I Association newsletter SIGNALS, was written to draw our members' attention to the fact (of which I and my colleagues were previously unaware) that it is virtually impossible for a party to a New York arbitration to appeal against an arbitration award.

In the article we set out the statutory grounds for overturning an award in New York, and members were invited to "take note accordingly when considering whether or not to agree to include New York arbitration clauses in their charter parties or other contracts". This exhortation was intended to be perfectly neutral, and the article was intended purely to draw our members' attention to this feature of New York arbitration of which we had hitherto been unaware. It was left entirely to members to decide whether this was of any significance to them when considering a choice of arbitration forum or choice of law clause in their charter parties or other contracts.

Your own report of the article was somewhat unfair in that it described the facts given in the article as "flimsy" and failed to mention that we were entirely happy to publish in the July 1998 edition of SIGNALS a letter in reply from the president of the Society of Maritime Arbitrators in New York.

We were naturally delighted on the other hand that your article described the North of England club as having "quickly made a name for itself as the loss prevention club". We merely wished to reassure your readers that we intend to provide factual, unbiased articles in our newsletter which are intended to promote greater understanding of issues which may be of concern to our membership.

As regard your reference to the "flimsy facts given" in our article, unfortunately space does not always permit us to give as much detail in our articles as would otherwise be the case in a publication such as the Maritime Advocate. There again, SIGNALS is intended to be a practical loss prevention newsletter for shipowners, shipmanagers, charterers and operators who are all very busy people.

We are grateful for this opportunity to set the record straight.

Yours etc

Stephen Purvis
North of England
P&I Association Newcastle Upon Tyne England