SMA celebrates
SMA celebrates
THIRTY-FIVE is no age at all. In fact, it is only a little more than half the age you need to be to be an average member of the Society of Maritime Arbitrators (SMA) in New York. But the SMA itself passed 35 last month, and that is something worth celebrating.
The SMA celebrated in style, with an anniversary dinner/dance in New York and a commemorative booklet which included messages of congratulation from, among others, Bill Clinton. Our photo shows SMA president Lucienne Bulow, who organised the anniversary celebrations, surrounded by an appreciative cast of New York maritime arbitration luminaries.
IMO for kids
THE idea of a children’s book from the IMO may seem a little unlikely. Yet here we have Little ‘Mo, The Brave Little Boat emerging from the esteemed halls of IMO headquarters in London.
The book was written and published by IMO staff to raise money for good causes.
For those new fathers and mothers, and young-at-heart grandparents in the industry, it may be an easy way to explain to a six-year-old sibling why they do what they do for a living. It is also a good introduction to European languages, since the text is printed in English, French, and Spanish.
The book seems to be selling quite well too. Annie Kean, the author, and a translator at IMO, tells us it has sold 400 copies so far, and a recent order for a further 500 ensures a reprint in the near future, with plans to include Arabic and Russian translations.
Its profits so far have helped to sponsor a young girl from Indonesia, and a young boy from Tanzania for one year. It is hard to think of a better way of spending a fiver in shipping.
Little ‘Mo, The Brave Little Boat, By Annie Kean Published by IMO Staff Union, 4 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7SR, UK. Tel: +44 171 587 3204, Fax: +44 171 587 3210 Price £4 (£5 inc post and packing)
Arresting law
MRC Business Information Systems has just published the second edition of its Directory of International Ship Arrest Lawyers. It is much better than the first one which listed, almost apologetically, international ship arrest lawyers based in the UK and which was dotted through with intermittent and unstructured editorials on selected geographical regions.
The 1998 directory makes no pretence at editorial. It is simply an international listing of lawyers, with their addresses and phone and fax and other relevant numbers, together with details of key personnel where available. It is all the better for that.
Interestingly, there is space for e-mail numbers, but hardly any entries alongside. Lawyers have been slower than most to catch on to the IT revolution, it seems. Still, it will make things easier when it comes to printing the third edition.
The directory is intended as an aid to the process of efficient arrest. MRC doesn’t pretend that the directory is complete. In fact it notes that, of the 4,000 law firms invited to participate, about 700 individuals from 400 firms responded. That gives it a pretty good coverage.
Arresting a ship should be a last resort. But, if you have to do it, your chances of success are going to depend on speed of reaction based on expert intelligence of the whereabouts of the ship you want to arrest. The MRC directory may have a part to play in that. It is a fat book made fatter by the inclusion of gratuitous blank pages at the beginning and end of each country section. These cannot be for notes, because we all know that lawyers make their notes either on legal pads or the back of fag packets.
MRC doesn’t take any credit, or responsibility, for the listings. All those companies and individuals listed are "self-selected and, where comments are made on their activities, these are their own comments, not MRC’s." Having made a random check of a few selected entries, and found the names we expected to find, we reckon MRC has done a good job as a conduit. This is a directory worth investing in if you are likely to have to resort to arresting a ship.
MRC Directory of International Ship Arrest Lawyers. Published by MRC Business Information Group Ltd, 5 Worcester Street, Oxford OX1 2BX, UK. Tel: +44 1865 200202, Fax: +44 1865 200509, e-mail: a...@mrcinfo.co
Worth a thousand words
I HAVE no particular affinity with shipbroking, German or otherwise, but I am a sucker for old photographs. That must explain why I was drawn to 100 Years of the Association of Hamburg Shipbrokers and Liner Agents, which landed on my desk this month, as if by osmosis.
The book is written in German and, so far as I can tell, summarised in English in ten pages at the back. Don’t worry if your German isn’t up to scratch. It is worth trying to get hold a copy just to look at the photographs of ships and shipping people, such as the one reproduced here of "The outward Scandinavian department of an important Hamburg liner agency in 1937". Marvellous. Not a mouse mat in sight. Whatever happened to inkwells and adding machines and stamp pads anyway, and to wood for that matter?
I am not sure how widely available the book is, but you can phone the association on +40 32 60 82 and ask. Alternatively, you can fax it on +40 33 19 95. Whatever would the people in the photograph have made of that?