DENMARK Law and Practice Contributed by: Johannes Grove Nielsen, Camilla Søgaard Hudson, Lars Rosenberg Overby and Malthe Hersom Kløft, Bech-Bruun
5.12 Damages in the Event of Wrongful Arrest of a Vessel Under Danish law, a person who has obtained an arrest on the basis of a claim that turns out not to exist must pay the debtor compensation for loss and tort. The same applies when the arrest lapses or is revoked due to subsequent circumstances if it must be assumed that the claim did not exist. The liability is strict if the claim for which an arrest has been made turns out not to exist. If the arrest is otherwise found wrongful, the creditor is liable for loss and tort on a fault-based basis. 6. Passenger Claims 6.1 Laws and Conventions Applicable to the Resolution of Passenger Claims The regulations on carriers’ liability for passengers and insurance obligations, as well as passengers’ possibilities of being compensated and passenger rights, are stipulated in five sets of regulations: • the 1974 Athens Convention on the carriage of passengers and their luggage by sea, as amended by the Protocol of 2002; • Executive Order No 9 of 10 January 2013 on cer - tificates for confirming insurance or other guaran - tee for covering the liability to pay compensation in connection with accidents during the carriage of passengers by sea, as amended by Executive Order No 47 of 21 January 2014 and Executive Order No 1525 of 11 December 2015; and • Chapter 15 of the Danish Merchant Shipping Act on the carriage of passengers and their luggage. According to the Danish Merchant Shipping Act Sec - tion 501, the period of limitation regarding delay of carriage of passengers or passengers’ goods is two years after the day the passenger or the baggage was discharged. The limitations on liabilities are as follows. • Loss caused by delay can be limited to 4,150 SDR. • EU Regulation No 392/2009; • EU Regulation No 1177/2010;
is registered in the DAS or the DIS, the judicial sale will be registered therein. Usually, the owner of the vessel will not be deprived of the right of disposal entirely, and will therefore still be responsible for the maintenance of the vessel. In addition, the owner is not allowed to dispose of the vessel in a way that could impair the arrestor’s right. Maritime liens on a ship take priority over other mari - time claims and must be paid in the order in which they are listed; and those mentioned under the same number shall rank equally. However, rewards for salvage, removal of wrecks, and contribution in general average shall rank above other maritime liens that arose earlier; and, as regards the relationship between rewards for salvage, removal of wrecks and contribution in general average, the youngest rights shall rank before the oldest. Maritime liens on a ship are not extinguished if the property rights to the ship are transferred to another party, or if the registration of the ship is changed. Claims secured by registered mortgages and all other claims have priority after maritime liens in the order in which they have been established. A vessel may be subject to several mortgages, and there is no general rule requiring consent from higher- recorded mortgagees. It is not uncommon for negative pledge agreements to be agreed to and registered. 5.11 Insolvency Laws Applied by Maritime Courts Rules on reorganisation analogous to Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code are set out in Chapter 1 (a) of the Danish Bankruptcy Act. According to this act, arrest cannot be made during reorganisation proceed - ings. The rules imply that the debtor’s creditors are barred from seeking satisfaction in the debtor’s assets through individual prosecution when a reconstruction treatment has been initiated.
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