Lloyd’s Updates “Open Form” Salvage Agreement

Lloyd’s announced that it has revised one of the best known documents in the maritime world – The Lloyd’s Open Form. Designed to speed rescue and salvage operations for ships in distress, the document sets out the rights, payments and duties of owners and salvors, and thus avoids time consuming negotiations, which could further imperil vessels already at risk.

“The new version of the form has been shortened from six pages to just two by removing most of the legal and procedural information and placing it in a separate reference document,” said the announcement. “The language used has also been simplified to take account of the increasingly international nature of ships’ crews.”

Lloyd’s Director of Insurance Services, Michael Taylor, characterized the document as “one of the great common sense ideas of the shipping world;” and said that “the latest revision is much more user friendly than the previous incarnation – something that’s very important in a situation when time can make all the difference between a successful salvage operation and a shipping disaster.”