Ship arrest in Romania by Adrian Cristea
CRISTEA & PARTNERS LAW OFFICE
900682, Cuza-Voda street,nr.54,flat 3
Constanta, Romania
Tel 00 40 241 518 112
Fax 00 40 241 518 802
Mobile 00 40 744 518 583
e-mail: adiclaw@seanet.ro
www.cristealaw.ro
Conditions imposed by Romanian law :
a) Indicate and provide evidences to the Court that plaintiffs have started the main legal action (Court action or arbitration proceedings according to the provisions of the C/P or B/L)against the defendant.The evidence should be a letter from a Court,apostilled according to Hague Convention 1961 or a letter from the arbitrator appointed showing that arbitration has started;
b) Indicate and provide evidences to the Court that the defendant in the main proceedings is the owner of the vessel;
c) Provide a bank letter of guarantee to the Court up to the amount of 10 % of the claimed amount (the amount will be fixed by the Court but in most of the cases is 10%). The main purpose of such bank letter of guarantee is to compensate the losses of the defendant owner if finally the claim of the plaintiff will be found ungrounded by the Court.
In case the matter is very urgent, vessels can be provisionally arrested through the Harbour Master,paying a tax of Euro 400 (Saturdays and Sundays Euro 800).
A notice of arrest will be notified to the Harbour Master. Harbour Master will place the order of arrest to the vessel’s file and will not interupt in any way vessel’s operations. Notice of arrest will become effective when the vessel will finalise operations and vessel’s agent will attend Harbour Master to receive vessel’s permit to leave outside. Starting with the hour when vessel’s agent will ask for the Permit to leave, Harbour Master will start counting 24 hours (Saturdays and Sundays are not included within this hours anyway) and the vessel will be arrested for 24 hours. During these 24 hours, plaintiff will need to apply to the Court asking for the arrest of the vessel. Court are judging these cases on an urgent basis and normally are issuing the decision within 24 hrs. There is no need for the time being to place the counter-security which will be requested by the Court at a later stage.
Court costs are in the region of Euro 100. Lawyer fees normally calculated on hourly basis (Euro 200) and usually do not exceed Euro 5,000.Costs are usually recoverable from defendant.