8 March is International Women’s Day and March is Women’s History Month. Together these provide an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women. It is also a time to raise awareness about discrimination and to take action to drive women’s equality. This year, Fiona Cain, Counsel, a dispute resolution lawyer specialising in shipping and energy and part of Haynes Boone’s London Women in Energy and Shipping Group, spoke to Stinne Taiger Ivø of The Baltic and International Maritime Council. BIMCO, an NGO with over 2,000 members in 130 countries, provides leadership to the global shipping industry and represents around 64 percent of the world’s tonnage. Stinne was appointed Deputy Secretary General this year and is involved in leading BIMCO’s documentary work and the development of standard contracts and clauses for use in the shipping industry and, more recently, the offshore renewables industry.
Fiona Cain: Congratulations on your recent appointment as Deputy Secretary General for BIMCO. Can you tell me a bit about your background and your new role?
Stinne Taiger Ivø: My career did not start in shipping, but in international company law and research. I discovered maritime law during my research at the University of Copenhagen. It interested me, so I joined the shipping department of the Danish law firm Gorrissen Federspiel to gain practical experience, and did not return to research. I still, however, find legal research important, as it provides us with a better understanding of legal developments and sets them into perspective. I have also worked for Danish Shipping, the Danish association for shipowners, and the P&I insurer Skuld, where I headed the claims department in Copenhagen. Before I joined BIMCO, I was aware of the documentary work and the importance of the contracts and clauses produced by BIMCO for the industry. It is exciting to be involved in developing these because if standard and industry-acceptable clauses did not exist, the individual owner and charterer would have to develop their own, and this takes time and resources and potentially makes it harder to negotiate.
Fiona: 2023 was a productive year for BIMCO, which saw you introduce several standard contracts and clauses. Which of these has been the most significant?
Stinne: 2023 was indeed a productive year, and we published several significant contracts and clauses. These included a CII (carbon intensity indicator) Clause for Voyage Charter Parties, and we developed clauses for ETS (emissions trading scheme), both for voyage charter parties and for ship management agreements. The EU ETS directive entered into force on 1 January 2024, and it was important to have the clauses ready by then.
