The United Arab Emirates (UAE) joined the Convention on
Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims, 1976 (the
"Convention") by virtue of the federal decree No.
118/1997. Since then the Convention has become a national
legislation with full legal effect.
According to article 1, shipowners and salvors may limit their
legal liability according to the rules of the Convention for
certain claims. The convention defined both shipowners and salvors
as those who can benefit from and apply the limitation of liability
as set out by the Convention.
Article 2 of the Convention provides for the claims which are
subject to limitation of liability while article 3 provides for the
claims exempted from the limitation of liability.
Article 4 of the Convention provides that:
"A person liable shall not be entitled to limit his liability
if it is proved that the loss resulted from his personal act or
omission, committed with the intent to cause such loss, or
recklessly and with knowledge that such loss would probably
result."
The approach of article 4 was applied literally by the courts of
the UAE. The personal act or omission was expressed by the UAE
courts as a personal fault which takes two forms. According to the
UAE court judgments, evaluation of the personal fault is subjective
depending on the circumstances that surround the case. The burden
of proving the personal fault is on the claimant who suffered the
loss and who wants to deprive the person at fault from the benefit
of limitation of liability. The fault description is considered to
be a legal matter.
Article 140 of the Commercial Maritime Law No. 26 for the year 1981
as amended by the federal law No. 11 for the year 1988 (CML), also
supports the provision of article 4 of the Convention, and the
approach of the UAE courts in applying the provision of the
convention. Article 140 of CML provides for personal fault on the
part of the shipowner in order to deprive him from limiting his
liability and it also puts the burden of proving such fault on the
claimant.
Not only does the convention provide for the limitation of
shipowners liability but so too does the CML. The main difference
between both is that the Convention contains more comprehensive
provisions which cover limitation of liability and therefore its
provision will overrule any other provisions in the UAE laws.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
