Do you know whether you are using an authentic BIMCO contract?

Published: 07 August 2024

And do you know the risks if you’re not using one?

BIMCO is recognised as the world leader in the development of standard contracts and clauses for the shipping industry and our standards are widely used in the maritime and offshore sectors. All of our most widely used time and voyage charter parties, bills of lading and other standard agreements are available in an electronic format using BIMCO's charter party editing system SmartCon.

By using SmartCon or another BIMCO-approved system to manage your agreements, you can be confident that the contracts you are negotiating and finalising are authentic BIMCO forms.

This provides contractual certainty as changes made to the standard wording will be clearly visible which, in turn, puts you in a position to determine what you are signing up to. Using BIMCO contracts which are not authentic involves commercial, legal and financial risks and is a breach of BIMCO's copyright.

Short clause with a potential large impact

To reduce the often inadvertent use of counterfeit BIMCO contracts, all new and revised BIMCO forms contain the BIMCO Authenticity Clause adopted in 2020. The Authenticity Clause is prominently featured in Part I of all forms published after 2020, above the signature boxes. According to the clause, the party responsible for issuing the final execution version of the contract warrants that it is an authentic BIMCO template procured from a properly authorised source (such as SmartCon) and that all modifications to it are clearly visible. If a party is reluctant to include the clause, it should serve as a warning that the contract is not a genuine BIMCO standard agreement.

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