28 January 2007

FD&D


No, this has nothing to do with Dungeons & Dragons. The picture is only an illustration of how badly things can go wrong in shipping. This casualty happened in Zakinthos, Greece in 2002 due to a "navigational error". That was the official cause. In actual fact the bridge crew were drunk at the time.

For readers of this blog outside of the shipping industry, FD&D is a class of marine insurance which stands for "Freight, Demurrage & Defence". The last 2 "D"s are probably interchangeable. It basically covers a ship-operator's legal costs in the event of a contractual (usually charterparties, but may also include construction) disputes.

It's currently the run-up to P&I renewals (one of the reasons why I'm in Singapore at the moment) which is why this particular FD&D issue came up. P&I is another class of marine insurance and the reason why these often go hand-in-hand is because they are insured by marine mutuals (P&I Clubs), all of whom, by tradition, renew on 19th February every year. Historically, the reason for the renewal date being 19th February is because that would be the date when the Baltic re-opens for trading.

For the last few monts, most, if not all ship-operators would been reviewing their loss records for the previous 5 years in preparation for the renewal. Once the records have been agreed, renewal negotiations with the P&I Clubs' underwriters can begin.

In this instance, a ship-operator I know (G) had an issue with its FD&D loss record. Different Clubs reflect the figures differently. Some Clubs show expenditure on legal costs as postive numbers (conversely, recoveries, if any, are shown as negative numbers) whereas some Clubs do the oppposite. In this case the Club in question reflected expenditure as a postive number.

The issue related to the legal costs in an arbitration in which G (the claimant) was successful. Since costs follow the event, the tribunal made a notional but not insubstantial costs award in G's favour, even though the proceedings had been handled entirely by the Club, rather than external solicitors (which is usually the case). The Club eventually recovered a 5-figure sum (USD) from the respondent and promptly paid these funds into the Club's general accounts. It then reflected G's loss records to show a nil balance.

G is unhappy with this because it is of the view that its loss record should show the full 5-figure sum recovered from the respondent. G has no objection to the Club keeping the money, though. The Club disagrees with how the loss record should reflect the recovery. The Club's position is that FD&D is only intended to cover G's legal costs and certain consequences flow from this premise.

If G was unsuccessful in the arbitration, it would have had to pay the P&P, as well as the S&C costs of both parties. In that instance, G's loss record would show a postive figure. However, since G was successful in the arbitration, it was the respondent who would be liable to pay the P&P and S&C costs of both parties and as such, the best result which G could hope for is that it pays nothing - in theory. In this case, costs were awarded on a standard basis and unless these were taxed/assessed, G would probably only recover 70% to 90% of the legal costs it incurred. Because the Club handled the matter in-house, no costs were incurred as such, merely the Club's time and resources. As such, the Club gave (in its view) G the benefit of the doubt and entered a nil balance on G's loss record, which would have been the best theoretical result (there may be an exception where interest on costs is awarded and in which case the best theoretical result could be a postive number greater than zero).

G disagrees that a nil balance is the best theoretical result on the basis that it has paid its calls (the in-word for "premiums") and these calls will have included the Club's claims-handling costs and associated overheads. As such, its loss record should reflect the full amount recovered from the respondents.

Both parties have a point but the question is who has the better point? I called my friends who work as claims-handlers for the various other P&I Clubs and all of them took the same view as G's P&I Club. However, they all also conceded that G had a valid point. However, in conversation with them, we came up with 2 possible compromises in the event that the Club insisted on keeping the nil balance.

Option 1
The Club could put the recovered money aside and then use it to pay off future or current FD&D claims. This isn't really a good idea as there are likely to be regulatory implications. The money put aside could be seen as a sort of "slush fund".

Option 2
Credit the recovered money to a related P&I claim so that G gets the benefit of the monies recovered. There are 2 problems with this. There may not be a related P&I claim, in which case, this solution is a non-starter. Even if there is a related P&I claim, this proposed solution is based on the assumption that a credit of $x as applied to G's P&I record is equivalent to the same being credited to its FD&D record. This assumption is wrong because P&I risks and FD&D risks are rated differently and crediting the P&I record may or may not improve it to the same extent that the FD&D record will have been improved by an identical credit.

Both options have their problems but this issue had been looked at by a total of 8 different lawyers (including myself), we couldn't really see what other alternatives there were.

This incident gives rise to some interesting questions, not least of which was why we (myself and my friends whom I consulted on this point) were all of the view the Club's view that the conceptual difficulties in reflecting a "credit" for a recovery of legal costs (stemming from the premises that FD&D is only intended to cover legal costs) was more persuasive. Purely from the perspective of the various P&I Clubs, that their claims-handlers all saw things from the same point of view was hardly surprising. This could be put down to institutional conditioning. Why it also appealed to me was more curious, given that I've not subject to the same institutional conditioning. It could be a jurisprudential issue insofar as my friends and I are all lawyers and received the same model of legal education, especially in relation to legal reasoning. Perhaps that's why the commercial view taken by G seemed to have rather less appeal to us.

Anyone with any ideas concerning more options by way of a compromise between G and its P&I Club as well as any thoughts concerning the jurisprudential issue, please don't hesitate to email me.

Hellooooooo Sailor!


Actually, it should be "sailors", plural.

I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm typing this from the tropical island of Singapore where it's not very sunny. In fact there's been lots of rain and when it's not raining, the skies have been overcast.

Co-incidentally, the USS ************ is also visiting and the streets are fully of young, virile, men with buzz-cuts (just the sort I like). I went to one of the local gay spas last night and there were several sailor types there, all cruising for local meat. Can't really blame the sailor boys what with the US Navy's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, it's not exactly easy hooking up with another likewise-inclined sailor while at sea.

I managed to have it off with a couple of sailors last night. The first one was very beefy and it happened in the dark maze. Lots of other guys involved - mouths, hands, cocks everywhere. I was kissing the beefy sailor while someone sucked me until I came. After that encounter, I went to the jacuzzi for a rest and after having sufficiently recovered, went back to cruising in search for more action. That was when I met the second sailor. He was younger than the first sailor, not as built as the first but nicely toned - must be all that manual labour they have to do while onboard ship. This time, it was a private encounter and we spent a couple of hours in a cubicle alone together. This time, it was more like making love to a boyfriend. After we both came, we stayed in the cubicle, cuddled and talked until it was time for him to get back to the ship.

That's what I miss about not having a boyfriend. I'm not really in the right place in life for another boyfriend at the moment. My life is too unsettled and I don't want to start seeing someone and then have to break it off (or do the long-distance thing) when work takes me places for an extended period of time. That said, I'm not going to say no to someone whom I might meet now who could possibly turn out to be Mr Right. You never know about these things. Sometimes they come and hit you when you're least expecting it. For the time-being, I'm going to have to settle for Mr Right Now. Weekly hook-ups with different guys, great as some of them might be, aren't very emotionally satisfying. I find that I'm at a stage in my life where, although the physical aspect of being with another guy feels good for a while, it's a very souless connection. It's ironic how these encounters can be so physically intimate, yet so emotionally detached at the same time.

P.S. No cute sailor boys were hurt during the digital "castration" of the pictures in this entry. Anyone wanting pictures of this young sailor in his full glory, email me.

16 January 2007

My next mobile phone

I read about Apple's launch of the "iPhone" recently and the controversy about the name. It didn't really strike a chord with me because it didn't look like it had an in-built camera. On a whim, I went to the Apple website to check out details of the iPhone on the Apple website. Now I've completely changed my mind and as soon as the iPhone comes on the market, I'm going to ditch my current HP rw6828 and get myself one these beauties.

Australian Wit


The English may have any number of things to say about the Australians, particularly after having been white-washed in the recent Ashes series but this is probably Australian wit at it's best.

13 January 2007

Mr Right Now





Cute, isn't he?

Of dreams, drinks and tourbillons

It's been a week since I started this blog. I had intended to do more than weekly posts but this week was very busy for me.

Earlier this week, I had lunch with my friend, SL. She had a baby in November and baby C came out to lunch with us. The baby was very well-behaved throughout lunch and I didn't hear a peep out of her except when she needed to be fed. SL and I have used to lunch together fairly regularly until her third trimester and that she's had the sproglet, we're trying to get back to our lunch routine. It was a very convivial lunch - Japanese. We went out to buy doughnuts (or "donuts", if you like) from the Doughnut Factory. It's notorious for being so popular that you wait in line for at least a hour! I've seen the queues previously and was put off buying the doughnuts but was very curious about them. Fortunately, the queue wasn't that long and it was only a half-hour wait that day.

On another day this week, I had lunch with my friend, CH. He works for a Noggie (I use the word affectionately) marine liability mutual (I won't say which so you can try to guess whether it's Gard or Skuld). CH would be too modest to say it himself but he's HOT! He's in his late thirties but looks much younger. He's in very good shape and has a buzz cut which I really like. He's also got this killer smile which make me melt. I have to try very hard to hold it together whenever we hang out. CH recently relocated from Hong Kong with his Brazilian wife and 2 young children so there's unlikely that there'll ever be a chance we'll ever hook-up. He seems quite happily married. Over lunch, CH and I talked about watches. We're both "amateur" watch -collectors and we talked about my recent acquisition of a Breitling and how he was longing for a JLC Reverso. In the course of our conversation, he told me about tourbillon watches which I never heard of until then. Now, apart from having my own Aston Martin, I want a Breguet tourbillon watch.

Recently, I've been having very vivid dreams. They started shortly after Christmas and are very vivid not in a "visual" sort of way but in a more emotional sense and usually I don't remember any details, except how I felt during the dream. The dreams usually provoke a very acute emotional response. Up until today, the dreams were usually quite frightening, nightmares even and I would be trying to wake myself up from the dream and it would take quite a lot of effort to do it.

Today, the dream was quite different. It was erotic in nature and I was getting rimmed. When I'm conscious, getting rimmed gets a rather mixed response from me. Sometimes it feels good but sometimes it's just ticklish. On the occasions when getting rimmed feels good, it's not a particularly intense feeling but in my dream today, it was very intense. I was moaning like the male equivalent of a banshee in heat and I desperately needed the rimming to stop. It was as if it was sensory overload. In my dream I was writhing in agony with the intensity of the feeling. I eventually managed to wake myself up and I remember panting with exhaustion. Dream or no dream, I think I'd keep away from getting rimmed for a while. The memory of the dream still lingers.

Last night, I hooked up with B, a guy from Hong Kong at an gay spa. He's originally from Canada but has been working in Hong Kong for a few years. He teaches at one of the universities there - public policy or something like that. We had very enjoyable shag (he talked dirty to me while we were doing it, which I liked) and afterwards went out for a few drinks. He stuck with his Gs & Ts while I had a succession of Lychee Martinis, Caipirinhas and Bellinis. The Bellinis were a mistake. White peaches aren't really in season now.

06 January 2007

Tim's Twisted Mind

Hello World! This is my maiden post. Sort of. More to come shortly once I get more organised, I promise......

In the meantime, all pictures, videos and music which are posted on this blog in the future are the copyright of their respective owners.

Best to get that out of the way right at the beginning, don't you think?