선박금융에서 대주보호제도에 관한 연구

Abstract

Small or substantial portion of the purchase price is borrowed in most case where new building is ordered or a second-hand ship is purchased by shipping enterprises. A ship can be a good security for such borrowing considering that it contains huge tangible materials itself in value and even an uncompleted status of ship can have some value which can be further increased through its building progress. Security arrangement can be agreed on each individual ship which is more convenient compared to undividible property like land. The ultimate purpose of security arrangement in connection with a new building contract is to secure the loan provided for the new building and prevent any disposal of the security by the borrower which protect the lender. This study explores the ways to protect the lender in relation to pre-delivery ships of which legal ownership are belonging to the shipyard. It goes further on the point that there should be some way to have the borrower maintains the ship’s security value. Mortgage is the most common arrangement but we have observed from the experiences the ships are not enough to pay back the loan in the market when ship’s value drops dramatically. It is therefore necessary to have some additional measures to protect the lender from collapse of security value. This study therefore explores such additional measures to secure the loan repayments which includes assignment of the right to ship, hire, freight, insurance and other rights relating to the ship and its earnings. For this, researches on actual shipping loan practices were conducted and relevant case laws were also closely studied. It leads to the points which suggest some legislation to clarify the parties’ legal relationship and such legislation shall protect and promote ship financing. Continuous attention is required on the topic of protecting the lenders as it will ultimately positively affect to the borrowers’ business.