Industry consultation on updated SHIPMAN agreement: Have your say!

Published: 22 May 2023

SHIPMAN 2009, BIMCO’s much-used ship management agreement, is currently being revised and the drafting team in charge of the project has finalised a draft for industry consultation.

Mindful of the wide use of SHIPMAN 2009, the main focus has been to bring the contract up-to-date by reflecting commercial developments in ship management practices whilst adding a number of boilerplate provisions that have become relevant because of regulatory changes, thereby reducing the need for rider clauses.

The drafting team is chaired by Capt. Ajay Hazari (Anglo Eastern) and includes representatives from Anglo Ship (Steve Davies), Hansa Tankers (Torfin Eide), Oldendorff (Johan Botes), V Ships (Dora Costa and Graham Prayel), BSM (Sebastian Hardenberg), Fleet Management (Capt. Gaurav Rajora), Columbia Shipmanagement (Manolis Nicolaou), GARD (Tim Howse), ITIC (Robert Hodge), West (Tim Davies) and Clyde & Co. (Stephen Mackin).

“SHIPMAN 2009 is in many ways the ‘go-to contract’ for the ship management industry. It sets out the parties’ rights and responsibilities in a clear and balanced way, thus providing legal certainty. We have taken great care to bring the contract up-to-date while acknowledging its recognition in the market,” says Capt. Hazari.

The revised SHIPMAN contract will also include a clause addressing ETS Allowances (ETSA). The clause will be made available both as an integral part of the contract and published as a standalone clause for use with SHIPMAN 2009. Work to develop the ETSA Clause is still ongoing and the draft therefore does not include a draft of this clause.

If you would like to comment on the draft please send an e-mail to Christian Hoppe (

) and Zehra Göknaz Engin (

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