Three-way battle at IMO

Three-way battle at IMO

BILL O’Neil is stepping down as secretary-general of IMO in June. There are three candidates to succeed him – Iceland’s Magnus Johannesson, Nigeria’s Monica Mbanefo, and Thimio Mitropoulos of Greece. None lacks support, and two of them aren’t lawyers.

Mbanefo is a qualified barrister. Currently director of the IMO conference division, she worked for the Federal Ministry of Justice of Nigeria from 1973 to 1991, drafting laws and representing Nigeria in various international organisations. In 1991 she was appointed senior deputy director/head of the legal office of IMO. In this capacity she was secretary to the IMO Legal Committee and to several diplomatic conferences which, amongst other things, oversaw the successful adoption of the 1992 CLC and Fund Protocols, the HNS Convention and the Arrest of Ships 1999 Convention. Mbanefo also restructured the Legal Office of IMO to improve its efficiency.

It matters not whether the candidate is lawyer, bureaucrat or salty dog; male or female; black or white. The important thing is that the successful candidate is the one best suited to the job. There is supposedly smart money on all three. Many of our readers will remember that Bill O’Neil was not everybody’s favourite when he stood for election. But he has ended up, quite rightly, as the true favourite of the shipping industry for the magnificent job he has done during his lengthy term of office.

Insured interest

IN these troubled times, it is nice to hear a story of growth rather than diminution. In 1986, David Angus first winged his way, like the Canadian goose he is, to the banks of the Thames to hold his inaugural City lunch for the London insurance market. About a dozen people attended. Seventeen years on, over sixty of the great and the good gathered at the London Capital Club at the end of January this year to join the senator for a sumptuous lunch peppered with lots of laughter.

This is not the kind of event where people stand on ceremony, but they do sit on the edge of their seats, hoping that their name is not mentioned in David’s irreverent and irrepressible bouts of repartee as lunch progresses.

Seven Stikeman Elliott partners joined David in hosting the lunch. These included Shawna Miller, managing partner of the London office, and Vincent Prager, Peter Cullen and Laurent Fortier, a trio of veteran attenders from the Montreal office. The youngest man on the block, representing the new generation of Stikeman Elliott, was associate Louis Morisset.

Bill O’Neil, secretary-general of IMO, and fellow Canadian, gave his usual update of the organisation’s continued work to promote international maritime regulations. Ray Hayden, current president of the USMLA, and his partner John Olson, represented the US legal market.

The auspicious event also marked the first wedding anniversary of Senator Angus and his wife Louise, who attended the lunch. David, whose energy appears inexhaustible, shows no sign of losing his enthusiasm for organising this event in future years. Social activities in the London insurance market have waned noticeably in recent years as corporate belts have tightened. The Stikeman lunch is now an established part of the London insurance market social scene. Long may it continue.

Unmanned command

A NICE piece appeared in the Maritime Items email of Haight Gardner Holland & Knight recently, in which Dennis Bryant explained, “Yesterday's Maritime Items indicated that the Coast Guard Authorization Act would, if adopted, allow US unmanned barges operating outside the US to be owned by non-citizens. My friend in the coastguard advised me that I should have said that the bill, if adopted, would allow US unmanned barges operating outside the US to be under the command of a non-citizen. When asked how an unmanned barge can be under the command of anyone, he responded that it is a metaphysical thing. Seriously, though, the master of the tug towing the barge is considered to have control of the barge. One wonders if the law recognises that this may not be true in bad weather.”