Beiping Chu | OST Colloquium: Intermediaries In Shipping

It is a very common practice in the international shipping market to negotiate and to conclude charterparties via brokers. Therefore, a commission clause is usually contained in the charterparty. In cases where a party delays or refuses to perform its contractual responsibility to remit the commission and where the charterparty does not contain a broker agreement or arbitration clause that expressly references commission-related disputes, two fundamental question arise. First, are the brokers able to refer their grievances against liable parties to omission under the arbitration clause in the charterparty? In other words, shall the arbitration clause contained in the charterparty bind brokers u disputes related to their commission for negotiating charterparter? This Article mainly discusses this issue from the perspective of Chinese law in comparison to common law judicial practice.