Shipping 2026

UK Trends and Developments Contributed by: Quentin Bargate and Elliot Bishop, Bargate Murray

Dispute resolution in London: procedure has evolved London remains the preferred seat for maritime arbi - tration because of its infrastructure, experience and a large body of English law and arbitral practice. A key 2026 development is the Arbitration Act 2025, which received Royal Assent in 2025 and came into force on 1 August 2025, updating the Arbitration Act 1996 in important respects (including codifying arbitrator disclosure duties and introducing a statutory basis for summary disposal, subject to party agreement). The London Maritime Arbitrators Association (LMAA) is by far the largest arbitral association in the world, and LMAA dispute resolution clauses are used widely in many shipping contracts. For commercial parties, the point is practical; English law plus London maritime arbitration is a secure, pri - vate system supported wholeheartedly by the courts. Practical steps: reducing dispute risk The themes above can be managed with a small set of disciplines that are considered “best in class” in 2026. Geopolitics and routing • Build contingency into voyage planning where trade routes are exposed to war/security risk and avoid optimistic ETAs that assume stability. • Keep contemporaneous records, ensure the company has intelligence that can be relied upon, crew training and the selection of good suppliers is essential. It is necessary to work with trusted service providers, including lawyers. Sanctions and counterparties • Treat sanctions as an ongoing operational process, because they are here to stay for the foreseeable future, and have in place the means to check ves - sel identity, its ownership/control, managers, insur - ers, trading patterns and AIS behaviour. • Stress-test payment routes pre-fixture (banks and intermediaries), with documented fallbacks and escalation procedures. • Ensure documentary compliance and institute sound checks on all stages of any transaction or trade.

Interoperability remains the practical obstacle: carri - ers, banks, traders, forwarders and insurers often sit on different platforms. The winners are those treating e-documentation as a controlled commercial process, not merely an IT roll-out. Cyber, safety and class: contractual and regulatory expectations are rising Cyber-risk can no longer be treated as an abstract IT issue, given it can stop port operations, disrupt cargo systems or compromise navigation and safety. A concrete regulatory/classification development is the International Association of Classification Socie - ties (IACS) Unified Requirements on cyber-resilience (UR E26/E27) applying to newbuilds contracted for construction from 1 July 2024 (as implemented by IACS members), which is now feeding into techni - cal specifications, class discussions and contractual deliverables. Commercially, this increases the importance of align - ing: • technical standards and warranties; • incident notification obligations; • evidence preservation; and • insurance disclosure requirements. Finance and investment: “explainability” and compliance narratives affect capital Higher borrowing costs and more selective lending have pushed diligence and covenant discipline to the fore. Sanctions and reputational risk now sit at the heart of many financing decisions: banks and insurers may walk away where structures are opaque or trad - ing patterns cannot be evidenced quickly. There is an increasing inclusion of sustainability- linked features and reporting obligations in finance documentation. The practical advice is to test those obligations against real trading behaviour: if a finance covenant depends on operational metrics, the char - tering strategy must allow compliance without con - stant renegotiation.

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