Ensuring the Rights of Ship-owners – Maritime Lien and Cesser Clause

Both by the common law or express contractual provision, the ship owner enjoys the right to retain the goods in the port of discharge as a security for the payment of freight or other charges. The article aims at analyzing the characteristics of common law and contractual liens: their legal nature, enforceability, effectiveness and conditions for the exercise of a contractual lien when cargo is owned by a third party. Closely related to the existence of lien is the cesser clause. Its purpose is to terminate the charterer's personal liability for specified payments on shipment of the cargo and at the same time to allow the ship owner to exercise a privilege as he might have at common law plus additional liens (typically for dead freight, demurrage and damages for detention). The conditions that enable the existence of a cesser clause are also analyzed thereby.