On the 30th of May, 2008 a two-day International Annual Conference “Practice of maritime business: sharing experience” finished its work. It was held in Odessa, Ukraine at the conference hall of the hotel “Odessa”. The Conference gathered more than 100 delegates and speakers from 10 countries: representatives of insurance, survey, shipping and forwarding companies, law firms and banks, etc. The main topic of the Conference was “Arbitration and dispute resolution”.

Within already four years the law firm “International Law Offices”, Ukraine together with the law firm “Remedy”, Russia organizes this event. The General partners in 2008 were Odessa Sea Trade Port and Russian National Insurance Company ROSGOSSTRAKH. The Conference was supported by London Maritime Arbitrators’ Association and German Maritime Arbitration Association, The Nautical Institute and Odessa City Council.

This event is important and well known for practitioners in the field of shipping and transportation, handlers, lawyers, CEOs, surveyors, underwriters and other maritime industry professionals. Its unique two-day program with the interactive sessions supplied all delegates with tools and advice that could be applied to day-to-day business.

The program of the conference-2008 was divided in two days that allowed to expand the subject of the Conference and to discuss many practical aspects of maritime business and ways of dispute resolution.

The first day was dedicated to highlights of arbitration procedure in London Maritime Arbitration. The bright presentation of Simon Gault (Honourary Secretary of LMAA) and Clive Aston (arbitrator) was devoted to this topic. The talks of other leading specialists in this field (George Lambrou/Thomas Cooper, Amir Sussman/ Clyde & Co, Tony Swinnerton/ Swinnerton Moore) opened different nuances of international arbitration.

The second day of the Conference was mostly devoted to disputes in other jurisdictions. Partner of International Law Offices, Ukraine Arthur Nitsevych disclosed his presentation “Nature of claims: avoiding problems” showing how to avoid claims and disputes. His Russian colleague Andrey Suprunenko/ Remedy Law firm presented a report on Subrogation and Abandonment.

The brilliant interactive session was provided by GMAA (headed by Dieter Griebel, Secretary General of GMAA). The bright presentation showed that, in spite of contradictory situations and insufficient number and quality of evidences that could not fully recover the original situation, the competent and experienced arbitrators were able to issue a fare award under the concrete case. This Mock arbitration in performance of the team of six notable arbitrators and lawyers became the best final of the program.

Unfortunately, nowadays the legislation of post-Soviet countries doesn’t provide for the maritime claim resolution as an independent part of claim resolution. That’s why it was very important to understand how this mechanism works in practice internationally. The striking examples of foreign speakers (Alberto Batini/ BB & Partners, George Chalos/ Chalos & Co, Thomas Wanckel/ Segelken & Suchopar, George Zamabrtas/ Economides, Dionysiou & Co and others) helped much to see that maritime arbitration is actually effective and reasonable to be used in practice.

The big interest of everyone could be seen in the great number of grand questions after each presentation. It was interesting to note that every speaker could also express the irony in respect with some of the questions along with seriousness and objectiveness of their presentations. All these factors filled the common atmosphere of the conference with the positive energy.

The Conference was most interesting as it dealt only with essential topics and what was gratifying and, indeed, refreshing. Last, but certainly not least, the social part of the event was most friendly. The boat trip in the Odessa bay, the cocktail party and the Friday dinner were memorable. It was a very well run, professional and enjoyable conference. Everyone enjoyed meeting colleagues, delegates and speakers.

Summing up the results, Arthur Nitsevych expressed special gratitude to supporters and partners of the event, while Nikolay Melnikov, the presiding Partner of International Law Offices wished to all delegates fulfillment of plans and invited to take part in the Conference 2009 that would take place again in Odessa at the end of May 2009.