MSC Flaminia fire




MSC Flaminia: shipper required to pay the cost of his goods to get them back from MSC/NSB
Maritime Bulletin received yet one more letter from a cargo owner who shipped his goods on board of MSC Flaminia. He shipped a car from the US, cost of the car is $5,200. Container with his car wasn’t damaged. He can’t retrieve his container until he pays General Average, which for him, was calculated as a sum of $5,200 (is it some kind of a bad joke, twisted sense of humor?). He is at a loss what to do – curse it all around and forget about car, or try to do something? 
Questions to those who’re defending the General Average Rule, at least in MSC Flaminia case –how that fire can be even theoretically connected to the risks of the seas; and how does it come that minor shippers should suffer substantial losses in order for carrier to cover his losses? $5,200 may seem a small sum, but for an individual it may be equal, comparatively, to the loss of ocean-going container ship for the carrier company. 
The MSC Flaminia fire is the result of utterly inadequate present-day container safety regulations, and the inability for any major carrier to check all the containers it loads and carries. Radically new approach to container safety can’t be adapted separately by this or that carrier, actually such an undertaking exceeds the capabilities of all of them taken together, and requires international efforts. But at least it’s a subject to discussion, like it was the case with terror threat and demand for physical check of each container destined to the US. At least the public has a right to know the statistics of container fire-related incidents on board of container ships. There is something though, carriers could do by themselves, to improve the safety – they could stop the malpractice of stacking containers with safe goods together with containers with dangerous goods. 
As for MSC Flaminia minor shippers, I still strongly believe they may collectively sue the carrier on the same basis they could sue the management of warehouse or hotel or any other storage facility, which failed to provide the guaranteed safety. Technically, physically speaking, there’s absolutely no difference between fire on board of MSC Flaminia and fire in a land storage facility, and natural causes, namely sea voyage risks, have nothing to do with MSC Flaminia fire. That’s the point. 
Voytenko Mikhail
Jan 25 





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