Web Alert: Right to limit liability in India under the LLMC.

A year ago, the Bombay High Court recognised for the first time shipowners’ right to limit liability by constituting a limitation fund in accordance with the 1976 Convention, as amended under the 1996 Protocol. This is an important decision since India signed the 1996 Protocol in 2011 but never modified Part XA of the Indian Merchant Shipping Act 1958 enacting the 1976 Convention in 2002. The Court nonetheless decided that the 1996 Protocol was only an amendment to the Convention so ought to be considered as already incorporated into domestic law under the existing Act. Whether the new limits set out by the 2012 Protocol which entered into force internationally on 8 June 2015 will apply in the future, remains to be seen.