BIMCO Piracy Clause for Time Charter Parties 2013
The standard clause allocating piracy risk, including the rule that hire ceases from the 91st day after a seizure until release.
The BIMCO Piracy Clause for Time Charter Parties 2013 allocates the consequences of piracy between shipowner and time charterer. It superseded the 2009 version, and the revision followed Pacific Basin IHX Ltd v Bulkhandling Handymax AS (The Triton Lark), which had exposed how much turned on the threshold of risk at which an owner may refuse a routeing order.
Its most quoted provision is the hire rule: the vessel remains on hire through a seizure, except that hire ceases from the 91st day after the seizure until release. That places the first three months of a hijacking on the charterer and the balance on the owner, a split negotiated rather than derived from any principle, and it is one of the most frequently amended lines in a rider.
The clause also governs the owner’s right to refuse to proceed into an area of piracy risk, the taking of preventive measures and who pays for them, additional war risk and kidnap and ransom premiums, crew bonuses, and the treatment of a deviation to avoid an affected area. The full article will set out each limb, compare it with the voyage charter version and with the war risks clauses, and cover its relationship with BMP and with the Joint War Committee listed areas.