From cargo ships, passenger ferries, airplanes, and rail cars to truck fleets, terminals, and ports, Nixon Peabody works with all forms of transport and the logistics that support it to provide the full range of legal services to the maritime industry, both domestic and international. Our Maritime practice dates back more than a century. We help our clients handle virtually every type of transaction for vessels documented in the United States and in the other principal maritime countries. Our clients include domestic and overseas ship owners, charterers, marine terminals, suppliers of transportation equipment to ship owners and marine terminals, marine logistics companies, and their marine insurers.
Our intimate knowledge of the maritime industry, in combination with our deep knowledge and experience in labor, tax, real estate, litigation, and security issues, enables us to serve all the legal needs of ports and marine terminals. Our skilled regulatory counselors work with clients to navigate the requirements of the port authorities, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Maritime Commission, United States Coast Guard, United States Maritime Administration, and the vessel documentation agencies of other countries. We frequently draft regulation and legal changes in cooperation with such agencies. Our attorneys regularly deal with port authorities and terminal operators throughout the U.S., understanding that they are indispensable links in the transportation chain. We are also thoroughly familiar with their commercial operations and regulatory compliance issues.
Financing for the maritime industry
Nixon Peabody’s industry-leading equipment finance practice allows clients to benefit from attorneys who are experienced in virtually every type of maritime industry financing, including mortgage financing, lease financing, leveraged leases, sale and leaseback operating leases, complex Eurodollar facilities, cross-border leases, and securitization of maritime lease receivables. Our attorneys are adept in handling subsidy financing matters, including foreign-country shipbuilding and United States subsidies. We are also well versed in all the programs sponsored by the United States Maritime Administration under the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, as amended, for the benefit of new builds and existing vessels, including Title XI loan guarantees, Capital Construction Fund tax-deferred transactions, and the Maritime Security Program.
We have also represented maritime and logistics companies in public and private M&A transactions. In this context, we have represented ship owners, charterers, financial institutions, underwriters, indenture trustees, and owner trustees.
Comprehensive maritime services
- Maritime charters
- Contracts of affreightment
- Bills of lading and other commercial and business agreements
- Agreements relating to marine terminal leases and operations
- Vessel sales contracts
- Passenger cruise contracts
- Customs matters
- Immigration matters
- Commercial and casualty litigation and dispute resolution
- Personal injury
- Cargo loss
- Insurance
- Oil spill
- Emergency response team
- Collision/allision
- Insurance coverage and risk management matters
- Maritime arrests and seizures
- Maritime liens
- Maritime bankruptcies and work-outs
- Alternative dispute resolution
- Jurisdictional issues