Chartering Experience Programme

A large amount of the goods moving in international trade are transported on chartered ships under charterparty arrangements. Clearly, it is vitally important to know something about these companies and individuals before you entrust them with your expensive vessel or cargo. You need to be confident they can perform as agreed.

Evidence confirms there is an increasing number of charterers and owners abandon their responsibilities. This leaves the other parties to the agreement faced with the high costs and difficulties that arise when trying to resolve the situation and complete the voyage.

Our Chartering Experience service can provide you with the timely information you need in order to make an informed decision and help to reduce the risk of dealing with a company that has a poor record, is a habitual defaulter or already has debts.

The service performs an important function, as once a chartering failure has happened the options facing those affected are few and invariably expensive.

We will conduct pre-fixture checks on your behalf and the service is free to IMB members. We will research our database, publicly available information and our vast network of sources to discover a company’s origins and trading record. We will obtain details on their experience in particular trades or with specific commodities, and we will try to ascertain what others think of their ability and whether they have any debts or other encumbrances that may inhibit their performance.

All the information we obtain is reported to you. It is also entered into our database to help other members that may encounter the same or similar parties in the future. As part of this programme we also encourage members to report their experiences and any difficulties encountered during charterparty arrangements.

The service is proving invaluable to our members and has prevented substantial losses on many occasions.