2013 Laytime Definitions Published

FONASBA President Marygrace Collins has been working over the past year with colleagues from BIMCO, the Baltic Exchange and the Comite Maritime Internationale (CMI) to update the joint VOYLAYRULES document originally published in 1993 as a guide to interpreting words and phases relating to laytime. The revised document, now know as the Laytime Definitions of Charter Parties 2013, was approved at the BIMCO Documentary Committee Centenary meeting in Paris in May and has been published this week.
Concurrent with publication, the parties to the exercise have issued a joint press release, FONASBA’s version of which is available here. Also available for download is a copy of BIMCO’s Special Circular 8, which provides explanatory notes to, and the text of, the 2013 Definitions. Clearly this is a matter which is directly relevant to both our broking and agent members and we would therefore ask all associations to circulate the information to all their members.
The Definitions revision will also be the subject of a discussion during the Chartering & Documentary Committee plenary meeting at the Lima Annual Meeting, at which the Chairman of the BIMCO Documentary Committee, Karel Stes, will be present.