선박관리회사의 대내외적 법률관계

Abstract

Ship management is typical a manager, a partnership or limited company which take over for example the technical management of a ship. Duties would include manning the vessel and obtaining necessary supplies. In addition, a manager may be obliged to supervise the ship’’s technical standard and decide when and were for example repairs should be performed etc. Traditionally the shipowner’s role has several functions the financing of the vessel, employment of personnel, technical supervision, commercial utilisation, operation etc. In today’’s shipping a considerable number of players have entered shipping without any first- hand knowledge of the sector, but the functions are still there but often split on different hands. Even shipowner’’s who have the know-how to operate their own vessels have found it expedient to delegate certain aspects of their business to others. The shipowner selects one or more services offered by the shipmanager, most often technical management, crew management and commercial management. The services of the ship management are independent from the shipowner working with its own staff and from a separate office. The general contractual position of a shipmanager is based on the law of agency. The agent must perform with reasonable care and skill the duties allotted to him by the agreement, must observe any lawful and reasonable instructions given by the principal so far as they are consistent with the terms of the agreement and must be strictly within the limits of his actual authority. The shipmanager does not conduct business in its own right but acts as an agent on behalf of a principal - the shipowner. The law of agency also regulates the internal relationship between the manager and the owner in ship management. This is the case because the manager acts as intermediary for the owner, by having the daily operation of the ship. Sometimes, as in the case of contracts for services, like in our example of ship management, it will only require the exercise of reasonable care or due diligence. In particular, an agent owes fiduciary duties to its principal. The distinguishing obligation of a fiduciary is the obligation of loyalty. Although it has been said that the essence of a fiduciary obligation is that it creates obligations of a different character from those deriving from the contract itself, where the agency is based on a contract between the principal and the agent, the fiduciary duties may in certain cases be varied by the terms of the contract.