Affreightment

Affreightment (from freight) is a legal term used in shipping.

A contract of affreightment is a contract between a ship-owner and another person (called the charterer), in which the ship-owner agrees to carry goods for the charterer in the ship, or to give the charterer the use of the whole or part of the ship's cargo-carrying space for the carriage of goods on a specified voyage or voyages or for a specified time. The charterer agrees to pay a specified price, called freight, for the carriage of the goods or the use of the ship.

A ship may be let, like a house, to a person who takes possession and control of it for a specified term. The person who hires a ship in this way occupies during the specified time the position of ship-owner. The contract under which a ship is so let may be called a charter-party—but it is not, properly speaking, a contract of affreightment, and is mentioned here only to clarify the distinction between a charter-party of this kind, which is sometimes called a demise of the ship, and a charter-party that is a contract of affreightment.

The law with regard to the contract of affreightment is a branch of the general law of contract. The rights and obligations of the ship-owner and the freighter depend, as in the case of all parties to contracts, upon the terms of the agreement entered into between them.

The law, however, interferes to some extent in regulating the effect to be given to contracts. Certain contracts are forbidden by the law, and being illegal are therefore incapable of enforcement. The most important example of illegality in the case of contracts of affreightment is when the contract involves trading with an enemy.

The law interferes again with regard to the interpretation of the contract. The meaning of words in the contract, or—in other words—its construction, when a dispute arises about it, are determined by a judge or court. The result is that certain more-or-less common clauses in affreightment contracts have come before the courts, and decisions in these cases are treated practically—though perhaps not logically—as rules of law that determine the meaning of certain common expressions in shipping contracts.

The law acts in a third way—by laying down rules that regulate rights of the parties in the absence of an express contractual stipulation that such rules cover. This is done either by statutory enactment, as by Part VIII of the Merchant Shipping Act 1804, which deals with the liability of ship-owners—or by established rules of common law, as, for instance, the rule that the common carrier is absolutely responsible for the safe delivery of the goods carried, unless prevented by an act of God or enemies of the Queen.

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Wikipedia