On the 1st of June, 2007 a two-day Conference “Practice of maritime business: sharing experience 2007” finished its work. It was held in Odessa, Ukraine at the conference hall of the hotel “Odessa”. The Conference gathered about 150 participants from 13 countries: representatives of shipping, insurance, survey companies, law firms, ports and terminals, specialized mass media etc. The main topics of the Conference were “Models of port management and investments” and “Maritime claims and their settlement”.

Within already three years the law firm “International Law Offices”, Odessa-Kiev-Nikolaev, together with the law firm “Remedy”, Saint-Petersburg, organizes the annual international conference “Practice of maritime business: sharing experience”. As usual the general financial partner is Commercial bank “Misto Bank”

The program of the conference-2007 was divided in two days that allowed to expand the subject of the Conference and to discuss many practical questions about maritime business.

The first day of the Conference was dedicated to the problems of existing practice of port management and investments in port economy. The reports of the leading specialists in the field of attraction of investments for development of ports in Holland, Malta, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia and Cyprus were listened to with great interest. Thus, our Russian colleagues presented reports on practice of sea ports development in the south regions of Russia and the region of Saint-Petersburg.

The separate part of the Conference was dedicated to the topic of investment in Black Sea ports, in particular Ilyichevsk port. Paul van Eulem, a consultant of the Dutch company Maritime Transport Business Solutions, told about the European models of port management and touched upon the practical moments of investments in Ukrainian ports. Georgiy Tokman, the head of the development and investment department of Ilyichevsk port in his report noticed that the possible decision of the problem of attraction of credit funds is cooperation with the leading international banks under guaranties of the Ukrainian government. The reports of other speakers were dedicated to the questions about port management in European Union and demonstrated both positive and negative experience of neighbors.

The peculiarity of the present Conference is its practical component. The first day of the conference included visit of major international grain trading companies interested in investments in Ukrainian ports and terminals.

The second day of the Conference was dedicated to maritime claims, the topic which affected interests of about all participants of transportation process. Arthur Nitsevych, a Partner of International Law Offices, paid special attention to concluding and executing of contracts with attraction of offshore companies, security means and guarantees under such contracts and spoke about typical mistakes and problems.

The report “P&I repayment and settlements on collision and oil pollution cases” covered up and analyzed norms of the Ukrainian legislation regulating claims connected with oil pollution, responsibility provided by law and typical examples in practice.

Summing up the Conference, Arthur Nitsevych expressed special gratitude to profile organizations that supported the event:The Nautical Institute of Ukraine, Association of Maritime Agencies of Ukraine AMAU and Association of the Ukrainian ports “UkrPort”. In conclusion the participants and organizers of the Conference heard the greetings of the Minister of Transport and Communications of Ukraine.

Nikolay Melnikov, presiding Partner of International Law Offices wished to all participants fulfillment of plans and invited to take part in the Conference 2008 that would take place again in Odessa most likely under support of BIMCO, London Maritime Arbitrators Association and German Maritime Arbitrators Association. The topic of the forthcoming conference will be “Arbitration and dispute resolution”.